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Schools

Students exit portables for new 'palace'

After a 11/2-year displacement during construction, Oak Grove Middle students will settle into their new, 170,000-square-foot, $21-million school on Wednesday.

By GRACE CHENG
Published July 31, 2005

	[Times photo: Jim Damaske]
	The main mall in Oak Grove Middle School's new building soars above the rest of the building, letting in an abundance of natural light. "It's a state-of-the-art facility," says Jim Cummings, project manager from the Peter R. Brown construction company.

CLEARWATER - The children are coming, the children are coming.

That's been the mantra for Patricia Bell, principal of Oak Grove Middle School, for the past couple of weeks.

While school starts for all Pinellas County students Wednesday, 1,100 children at Oak Grove will also get something entirely different: a completely new school.

The finishing touches are being put on a $21-million, 170,000-square-foot school building on S Belcher Road, quite a change for students who have been attending classes in portable classrooms for a year and a half.

But the wait was apparently worth it.

Bell can't stop grinning as she walks around the school, punctuating her descriptions with words like "beautiful," "fabulous" and "spectacular."

"This is a palace compared to what we had," Bell said. "And coming from portables for a year and a half? It's gorgeous." Oak Grove's original school building was razed a year and a half ago. Constructed in 1961, it had outside hallways that were later enclosed into one building, causing air quality problems. That was compounded by the fact that there were no windows, the air conditioning was inefficient, and repairs were always in order.

Eventually, the school district realized the old building was simply obsolete.

"They had all these various small projects, and then when they put them together, they realized they could build a new school with less trouble," Bell said.

Tony Rivas, director of facilities for the Pinellas County School Board, said the Department of Education uses a formula to determine when a new school building is needed. The life of a typical building is 65 years, so it would be more logical in the long run to start from scratch and build a new school.

The school wanted to preserve the oak trees on the property, and the only way to do that was to raze the old building and build on the same footprint. The students needed a temporary home. That meant portables.

Students and staff started school in December 2003 in a 55-portable temporary classroom village behind Clearwater High School, where they stayed until the end of the 2004-05 school year. Now, the portables will be occupied for a semester by students from Belcher Elementary while their own school undergoes renovations.

"We had difficulties (in the portables)," Bell said. "When it rained, we were out in the rain. We had a very makeshift cafeteria, a makeshift kitchen. . . . It wasn't easy."

Mark Hehr, president of the Parent-Teacher-Student Association, said that despite the problems, the kids loved the portables.

"They said it was quieter in the portables," Hehr said. "It was the parents who didn't like them, because it doesn't look like a school."

Hehr's son Nick, 13, will be an eighth-grader at Oak Grove. He said he enjoyed being outside a lot.

But there were a few things missing. There was no gym, no real cafeteria, no school news station. He recently visited the new building.

"It's nice . . . they just got the lockers in and a big cafeteria," Nick said. "Yeah, it's nice."

Mark Hehr was emphatic when asked whether a new building was worth all the hassle.

"Oh yes," he said. "Definitely . . . it's going to be a great thing."

Faculty members are also happy about it.

"I finally got a real room," said sixth-grade science teacher Bob Pecorelli. "It's going to be a real treat this year."

Pecorelli said he especially likes the science rooms, equipped with sinks and laboratory space.

"(The new space) allows us to really do some things where they can really explore, do experiments, set up group stations," he said. "We have technology we don't even know how to use yet."

That technology includes ceiling-mounted projectors, audio enhancement, media retrieval, temperature gauges and telephones in every classroom. The teachers came in last week to start training on the new features.

"It's a state-of-the-art facility," said Jim Cummings, project manager from the Peter R. Brown construction company. "It's a nice school. They have a lot of the new technology, a lot of the newer systems here."

The school is the product of about 18 months of work, beginning in December 2003. A few delays, such as last year's hurricanes and heavy spring rains, set back construction, but the teachers will be ready for the kids Wednesday, Bell said. She's making sure of that, chanting "The children are coming!" at everyone in the building who will listen.

The building itself is far from the typical red-brick rectangular school building. The front entrance and main mall area soar above the rest of the building, letting in lots of natural light. The administrative offices to the right of the main mall sport a curving burgundy outer wall, giving the building a distinctly modern flair.

Inside, each grade level will have its own separate wing to prevent too much mingling among the younger and older students. Another entrance on the west side of the school has a covered canopy and greets students with a piece of the old school: a marble block from the old marquee with the name of the school and the logo carved into it.

Another distinctive change: windows. Lots of them.

"Let me tell you what I'm really excited about," Pecorelli said. "I have windows for the first time in 20 years."

Bell has been working at the school all summer, armed with a cell phone and a walkie-talkie.

She will retire after this school year, and said she was glad to be able to see the completion of the new building. She hopes it will be a legacy she can leave for the students.

"We spent forever making decisions (about the school), and you think, "How is it really going to look?' " Bell said. "Then you come in and you get a little emotional, because all of a sudden it's this beautiful building."

Some cool features at the new Oak Grove Middle School at 1370 S Belcher Road:

Separate wings for each grade level

Audio enhancement and ceiling-mounted projectors in every classroom

Temperature control in each room

Seventy-four security cameras, including 13 outdoors

Windows (There were none in the old building)

[Last modified July 31, 2005, 01:31:21]