Carthage, Jasper County
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Carthage High School getting final touches
By Susan Redden
sredden@joplinglobe.com
CARTHAGE, Mo. — Principal Kandy Frazier said it doesn’t seem to matter how many trips she makes to the new Carthage High School.
“Every time I walk into the building, it takes my breath away,” said Frazier, who, along with students, will be moving in January to the new building at River Street and Airport Drive.
Mark Baker, the district’s assistant superintendent for business, said teachers, student groups and members of the community are among those that have gotten an early look at the building, as workers push to wrap up the $32 million project.
The work is on schedule, according to Baker and Jeff Wilson, superintendent with general contractor Crossland Construction Co.
Wet weather slowed progress early on. Baker said crews “have done a good job catching up.”
The contractor has added more crews and more supervisors to complete the project, Wilson said.
“We’ve pretty much doubled the staff; there will be 200 people at work here any given day,” he said.
Visitors taken through the new building most often react to the new competition gymnasium, the commons area and the media center, said Baker, while conducting a tour on Thursday.
Frazier said students who have seen the new building are really excited about all the extra space.
“It’s going to be a great atmosphere for them. We’re so crowded now, we’re having to bus kids between the high school, tech center and junior high,” she said.
The gymnasium will have seating for 2,100 spectators. There will be four computer labs in the 9,000-square-foot media center that features a glass wall overlooking the commons area, which also will function as the school’s lunchroom for students who, for years, have left the campus of the century-old high school over the lunch period.
The small cafeteria in the current high school serves no more than 150 students per day, Baker said, while the closed campus at the new building means 1,300 students will be eating in over the noon hour.
“We’ve hired more kitchen staff, and also more building maintenance staff with so much more space,” Baker said.
The new school is 262,672 square feet in size. By comparison, floor space in all the rest of the district’s buildings comprises about 580,000 square feet, he said.
The new building incorporates technology to serve students in classrooms, science and computer labs and other areas, and features high-tech computer controls for heating, lighting and security.
Both Baker and Frazier said a public celebration will be scheduled to mark the completion of the building which was funded by a bond issue approved by voters in April 2007.
“We want to have a big community celebration, because we’re so grateful for their support,” Frazier said.
Once the new high school is completed, work will start to remodel the current high-school building for use as a junior high. The junior-high building will become a fifth- and sixth-grade center, opening up more space to accommodate growth in the district’s five elementary school buildings.
The project won’t be a final solution to district overcrowding, and it won’t allow for the elimination of four mobile classrooms currently in use, Baker said.
“We have too many teachers traveling from room-to-room and teaching in rooms that didn’t start out as classrooms. It will address that,” he said. “But the youngest grades are our fastest-growing classes.”
Tech center
Construction will start in April on a new tech center to be built near the new high-school building. Money for the $4.3 million project is coming from a state grant, which will be matched equally by a donation from the Steadley Foundation.
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