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Home > Blogs > Hamilton Schools News and Issues > Archives > 2010 > August > 23 > Entry
Business (almost) as usual at Hamilton High despite construction
Some classes will be held in portable buildings outside the school, a few extracurricular activities and sports will take place at other locations, and lunch will be in what was once the auxiliary gym, but otherwise, administrators expect it to be business as usual when Hamilton High School classes begin Sept. 7.
“Divider walls are already in place so students will be able to move through the building safely,” said James Boerke, the district’s director of construction management. “The old gym, cafeteria and kitchen, and locker rooms are all gutted and will be the first areas of renovation.”
Principal Dennis Malone encourages all students who are not attending a new student orientation, where all of the changes will be discussed, to take a look around the building when they come to pick up their schedules after Sept. 2 to see how things have changed. There also will be instructions given during the first couple of days of school, especially in regard to a new lunch routine.
“We’re going to adjust our bell schedule to have four different lunch periods instead of three,” Malone said. “We will have three different serving lines, including a hot meal line.
“Once we get into a new routine, it’s going to be OK,” he said. “Given a little time, we’ll adjust.”
For the first phase of renovations, there will be eight temporary classrooms at the north end of the building, Malone said, with eight additional temporary classrooms added to the south end when the second phase begins.
“Different classes will be moving in and out of these temporary rooms depending on the phase of construction,” he said.
The biggest and most confusing change may be in the traffic patterns for picking up and dropping off students, he said, as the flow changes to one-way traffic and students will need to be dropped off in the rear of the building.
“All of this will be an inconvenience, but there’s never really a best time to do the renovations,” Malone said. “We had talked about just doing it over the summers, but that would turn this into an endless project. Cost wise, it just makes more sense to bring the equipment in and keep it there through the school year, and we’ll just have to work around it.”
Malone stressed, however, that no programs or classes have be eliminated because of the renovation project, though some activities will be moved while the renovations take place.
“We want this school year to run as much as possible like any other school year,” he said. “We shouldn’t have anybody saying they didn’t get to do something because of this.”
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Hamilton City Schools, Hamilton High School
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By smokey
August 27, 2010 8:13 AM | Link to this
well mr. malone, just how safe is our high school? asbestos is a KILLER! how could the school board allow this is beyond me! putting our children & teachers in this horrible position how dare the city & school board for letting this go on during school hours. fans don’t make asbestos go away it spreads all over. what a joke this city school is.