FAYETTEVILLE -- Ninth- and 10th-graders flipped between schedules and campus maps Monday as they navigated buildings, corridors and stairwells to find their classes in the completely transformed Fayetteville High School.
Ninth-grader Warren McCombs began the day in English, he said. His second class was a short walk a few hallways away, but his third class was in a separate building.
School project
The Fayetteville School Board voted in 2007 to move the ninth grade from the junior high schools to the high school and to renovate the high school. Voters initially rejected a proposal in 2009 for a 4.9-mill increase in property taxes to pay for a project totaling $116 million.
Timeline
March 2007: School Board votes to move ninth grade from junior high schools to high school.
June 2010: Construction begins on first phase of construction.
September 2010: Voters pass a millage increase to pay for second phase.
August 2012: First phase opens with a new Performing Arts Center and new gymnasium.
August 2013: First section of second phase opens.
August 2014: Second section of second phase opens.
August 2015: All construction is complete.
Source: Fayetteville School District
"Since it's so large, it's a bit confusing," McCombs said. "I can't even begin to describe what you do to get to the next class."
This school year, all freshmen and sophomores are new students on the Fayetteville High School campus. Most of them were eighth- and ninth-graders last school year at Ramay and Woodland junior high schools. Previously, Fayetteville High School had students in 10th through 12th grades. Ninth-graders moved up this year after the completion of $96 million construction and renovation project that began in 2010 and ended in July.
All four grades of students will be on one campus as one student body for the first time today.
"It is what I call a monument to education," said Superintendent Paul Hewitt during a back-to-school meeting with teachers and principals Friday. "It says how we value education."
The campus' three buildings encompass more than 543,792 square feet, with the renovation of 228,319 square feet and addition of about 232,000 square feet, said Alan Wilbourn, district spokesman. The front door of the high school moved from Bulldog Boulevard to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. A wide-open "green" corridor stretches from the west side of the campus to the east side and divides the buildings on the north and south sides.
Fayetteville High School staff organized an orientation day Monday for freshmen and sophomores that allowed them to visit all seven of their classes and an advisory period in about 2½ hours, classes they normally will have over two days. Administrators invited parents to join their students for the day.
That meant students and parents were climbing up and down stairs in an academic building on the north side with three floors and a basement and a long corridor that stretched 610 feet across. There are elevators for students with disabilities.
On Monday, McCombs said he liked his pre-Advanced Placement biology class and looks forward to learning more about clubs.
McCombs's mother, Carolyn Guinzio, said she's still nervous about her son navigating such a large campus.
"We know it's going to be fine," Guinzio said. "The facilities are gorgeous. All of the teachers are really excited."
Kenton Lambert and his mother, Kristen Speer, had to turn around a few times and ask for directions as they made their way from Susan Whitley's Oral Communications class in Room 1103 to Bartt Foster's algebra class in Room 2101. By the end of Foster's shortened class period, they realized they still went to the wrong room.
Lambert was supposed to be in Ryan Gorman's classroom, Speer said.
Lambert said he had some anxiety about beginning ninth grade at the high school. He hopes his teachers understand ninth-graders don't know what they are doing yet.
"It's a little bit hectic, crowded," Lambert said.
Jo Kaye Bandy and her son Emory met up with friends in the front lobby of the high school after finishing his schedule Monday.
"I'm exhausted, and it's only lunch," Jo Kaye Bandy said, as she rested in a chair. "The campus is amazing. It's beautiful."
Having a ninth-grader is heartbreaking, Jo Kaye Bandy said. She consciously tried to hold back and let her son figure out his first day of high school.
"He grew up too fast," Jo Kaye said. "I followed him in today and I thought back to walking him into kindergarten."
The Fayetteville School Board voted in 2007 to move the ninth grade from the junior high schools to the high school and to renovate the high school. Voters initially rejected a proposal in 2009 for a 4.9-mill increase in property taxes to pay for a project totaling $116 million.
District officials reworked the project into two phases, reducing the district's operating budget by $2 million to pay for the first $51 million in construction. Construction on the first phase began in June 2010 and ended in August 2012 on the south side of the campus. The first phase included a new Performing Arts Center, gymnasium, cafeteria, fine arts classrooms, junior varsity gym, wrestling gym, dance studio and administrative offices.
Voters passed a 2.75-mill increase in September 2010 to pay for the remaining $46 million in construction. The second phase consisted of renovations and new construction to create an academic building on the north side of the campus that was completed in three sections, Wilbourn said.
The first section of the second phase opened in August 2013, providing agriculture classrooms and labs. The middle section finished in 2014 with more classrooms spaces and the William Moore Library.
The final section involved more classroom spaces, Wilbourn said.
NW News on 08/18/2015