Campus Upgraded

CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES AT FAYETTEVILLE HIGH

Officials walk through the auditorium Thursday during a tour of additions to Fayetteville High School.
Officials walk through the auditorium Thursday during a tour of additions to Fayetteville High School.

— It’s quiet today, but in a couple of weeks, Fayetteville High School will buzz with activity.

Students will return Aug. 20 to a school with a massive addition that includes classrooms and offices as well as performance and athletic facilities.

They’ll also deal with ongoing construction expected to last until 2015.

Fast Facts

Fayetteville High School

• The performing arts, student commons, administrative offices and sports arenas contain 178,924 square feet.

• The student commons seats 600 students, twice as many as the old cafeteria.

• The auditorium seats 850, nearly three times as many as the old auditorium.

• The stone used on the lower sections of the exterior of the new buildings is from a quarry near Mena. The stone color is known as “Smokey Mountain blue” because of subtle changes in color that occur during the day.

• More than 113 miles of electrical wiring has been installed. Additionally, almost 23 miles of data cable has been installed.

• There are 18 retractable basketball backboards and goals in the new athletics buildings.

• There are 75 toilets, 20 urinals and 84 sinks in the two new buildings.

• Some 970 tons of construction waste, or 1.94 million pounds, has been diverted from landfills through recycling of concrete, metal and wood debris. That amounts to about 87 percent of the construction debris.

Source: Fayetteville School District

A major change is the new student commons, with seating for 600 students, which can offer six or seven stations with varied menus.

Colorful signs hang in the serving area labeling stations for a la carte selections, a grill menu, Italian and pizza, tasty choices, a salad bar and “grab and go,” where students can pick up packaged food to eat on the run.

Overlooking the commons is an old friend. Wood flooring that hosted thousands of basketball games in the now-demolished gym decorates one wall of the new cafeteria seating area. Prominently watching over student diners is the purple bulldog at the center of the gym floor for years.

Bistro style tables and chairs line two glass walls. Booths are at one end and tables will fill in the center of the room.

New Rules

With the added space comes a new requirement for juniors and seniors to remain on campus through the lunch hour.

Seniors who meet certain requirements and have their parents’ permission will be allowed to leave during lunch.

All seniors will be allowed to leave to eat lunch off campus from the first day of school, as long as they have passed the end-of-course and 11th-grade literacy exams and have completed any required remediation.

A senior can lose the privilege if they are assigned to mandated guided study or required tutorial; have attendance or discipline violations; have a car that’s been booted in the parking lot; have a fine, such as in the library; or don’t produce a student ID when asked.

“We’re trying to create a culture where every kid is expected to do well,” said Bobby Smith, assistant principal, who has been working with faculty and students to develop the new lunch program.

A one-hour daily lunch period will be divided into two 30-minute shifts for eating. Students can use the other 30 minutes for playing intramural sports, attending clubs and organizations or visiting with friends. Or, if necessary, the extra time can be used for remediation, as directed by a teacher.

“We may have to make some modifications to the afternoon schedule during the first couple of weeks to make sure all students are fed,” said Steve Jacoby, principal. “We are confident we can feed them all.”

Smith expects the lunch numbers to grow during the first weeks of school as students get used to the cafeteria and food offerings.

“If we have between 900 and 1,200 eat lunch, we will be extremely successful,” Smith said.

The first and only trial run for the cafeteria will be Aug. 15 when lunch will be served in the cafeteria to teachers and administrators, said Adam Simmons, food service director.

At A Glance

First Look

An open house for students to visit the high school and find their classrooms is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 16, administrators said.

A formal dedication is planned Sept. 14, with tours starting at 4 p.m. The dedication will be at 5 p.m. Gov. Mike Beebe and Tony Wood, assistant education commissioner, are scheduled to attend.

Source: Fayetteville School District

Parking

Parking has long been an issue around the school. Even with additional spaces between the school’s new front and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, parking is still a challenge, said Byron Zeagler, assistant principal.

“We will be pretty good for the next two years,” Zeagler said.

The faculty parking needs will increase by about 60 vehicles when freshmen move to the high school in 2015, Zeagler said.

There are about 170 faculty and staff at the high school. Besides new spaces along the front of the school, additional faculty parking will become available when a parking lot west of the new buildings is completed.

Some parking is designated adjacent to Harmon Field for faculty, mainly for coaches and the athletics staff. A few spaces will be designed for faculty in the senior parking lot to accommodate all teachers and staff.

Seniors and some juniors are the only students allowed to have cars on campus, Zeagler said. A parking sticker costs $40.

“There will never be any more parking,” Zeagler said. “Parking will be a problem forever.”

Learning Communities

In the classrooms, students will be divided into small learning communities, a strategy intended to divide a large school population into smaller groups. The intention is students won’t feel so lost if they stay in smaller groups.

Teachers and administrators have worked with students since the spring preparing for the small learning communities. Most students have received their schedules, including new sophomores.

Meanwhile, construction will continue on a building for the vocational agriculture and alternative learning programs on the northwest corner of the high school property. The building, with 50 classrooms, is to open August 2013. It sits roughly where the gym was before it was razed in March.

Construction will move east from that point over the next two years as construction crews remodel and enlarge classroom areas and the new Matthew M. Moore Library.

The entire project will be completed in August 2015.

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