With the new wing of Emporia Middle School close to completion, eighth-grade classrooms are moving into the new wing this week. Several classrooms were moved Monday night with the rest moving over Tuesday night.
The eighth-grade students will end this semester in the new wing, something administration and faculty say the students are excited about.
“Kids are excited,” said EMS principal Wendy Moore. “Kids hadn’t been able to go down there. We hadn’t allowed kids down there at all until (Monday) when we took the first team down to move into their lockers and we took the second team down around lunchtime (Tuesday). That’s pretty exciting, because they hadn’t seen it.”
“We moved lockers (Tuesday),” said EMS eighth-grade science teacher Anthony Purcell. “They wanted to look in every room. They wanted to see the bathrooms. The bathroom was such a big huge thing. I’m like ‘It’s just a bathroom.’ They wanted to see every single space because it’s brand new to them.”
“We moved out of our old lockers (Tuesday) and into the new lockers just a couple of hours ago,” said EMS eighth-grade social studies teacher Connie Keiss. “They were very inquisitive about where the bathrooms were and they think the bathrooms are beautiful. There’s a lot of excitement but also a lot of trepidation about ‘Well, I’m going to forget my locker combination and this is going to be weird. I’m going to go to the wrong place.’”
There will be a transition period, but it will be a welcome one because some of the upgrades that will be prevalent in the new classrooms. However, the new facilities were built to be as close to what was already established at EMS.
“The space that we have in our current structure, our old structure, it works,” said Moore. “Those spaces work for what we are trying to do. In the design phase we really tried to keep those things that worked for us in the new structure and I think that we did a pretty good job of that.”
“The rooms seem to be a little smaller,” said Keiss. “But as far as the set up I think I have a brand new smart board. The cabinets are in the same place, but again I think some of the cabinets are a little bit shallow, more shallow than these. Where the cabinets are, where the countertops are, where the smart boards are, they are all the same. I hope to be able to walk in tomorrow to a room that looks very similar to what you are walking into now.”
The science rooms are set up a little differently, but feature the same amenities.
“There are sinks and gas lines just like in this room,” said Purcell. “The demonstration table has moved from the front to the back. Other than that it’s pretty much all the same facilities.”
There is additions to safety equipment in the new science rooms.
“I think the science rooms are updated as far as the way the work stations are laid out,” said Moore. “There’s a lot of different code that we have to take into account as far as what must be contained in the science room now. So, we’ve got some extra safety equipment in our science rooms that is new and updated.”
Another change in the new wing is a change in design to the computer labs.
“We’ve got updated computer tables,” said Moore. “It’s a cleaner look because we can have all of our cabling behind that run in the channel along the tables. They’re all facing one direction so that a teacher can see computer screens from one vantage point and kind of see where kids are at.”
The sixth-grade students are moving their personal belongings from Lowther North Intermediate School. They won’t start classes in EMS until after the holiday break.
“They come with their backpacks and all of their stuff out of their lockers from the Lowther campus and we’ve assigned them into lockers here,” said Moore. “So they were able to come, unpack, learn a brand new combination and have plenty of time to stand down there and how to get that locker opened.”
During the break, crews will move the classrooms from Lowther North to EMS. Once everything is moved, teachers will get an opportunity to grab extra furniture or other personal items left behind to fill out their new classrooms.
“Those teachers will probably notice a change in size in their classroom spaces,” said Moore. “The classrooms at Lowther are configured very differently. They’re bigger. They just have some unique nooks and crannies that teachers have used pretty well for reading corners and different little nooks for kids. We don’t have those here.”
“They told us is they haven’t used it in a year, don’t move it.” said Vickie Dinkel, a sixth-grade classroom teacher at Lowther North Intermediate School since 1986, the longest of any teacher there. “So we’re leaving a bunch of stuff here.”
Dinkel is familiar with the building having taught almost everywhere in the structure built in 1911.
“I have taught on every floor of this building,” she said. “I started in the basement and it was dungeon like. Then I moved to first floor and then last year second floor and this year third floor.”
The 25-year veteran of Lowther North said her favorite floor to teach on was the first floor.
“The view out the window was the best and convenient to everything,” said Dinkel. “The stairs were killers. That’s one thing we’re not going to miss.”
Once the move is complete, the sixth-graders will be mostly segregated from the older students. Moore said that will help ease the transition.
“I think they’re hearing a lot of crazy stories from the older kids,” she said. “ ... We’ve decided that keeping sixth-grade more intact and keeping them in their own space is an important thing to do. So as we started planning this space and planning where people would be located in this space, I’ve worked to get seventh- and eighth-grade staff into seventh- and eight- grade wings.”
Despite the move into the new wing, the multi-purpose room still has work left to be done on it. The weather has slowed construction crews. The project is expected to be completed sometime in the spring semester.
“I am not certain on a completion date myself,” said Moore.