Daleville Middle School renovations on schedule

Closed for a decade, the Daleville Middle School is well on its way to reopening its doors for the upcoming school year.

At the Daleville Board of Education meeting June 17, School System Superintendent Dr. Lisa Stamps gave a progress report on the school that will house the city’s fifth through eighth graders for the 2020-2021 school year.

The DBOE decided to reopen the middle school housed on part of the Daleville High School campus because of increasing student enrollment in the city’s high school and elementary school, which are located on two geographically separated campuses.

Reopening the middle school will lower the near-capacity population at A.M. Windham Elementary School. “Student enrollment in the system has increased by 156 students in two years, not including the Pre-K students,” Stamps said. The 1,041 student population in 2018-19 was a 12 percent increase from the year before. The 1,086 students in 2019-20 is a 17 percent increase from the 2017-18 school year.

Re-opening the middle school is being done in two phases, Stamps said. “On Phase 1, we’re not looking at changing anything electrical, heating and cooling or plumbing,” she said. “It will just be ‘powder and paint’ and we may get to be the lucky ones who do the powder and paint.

“With school out, we’re going to be cleaning out, scrubbing and waxing floors, painting walls and doing whatever it takes for Phase 1 to get started because ready or not, we’re going to start school with it in the fall,” Stamps said. “Phase 2 is planned to be done next summer.”

Some of Phase 1 includes security doors and a secure vestibule in the lobby for the middle school. There will be a totally separate entrance for the middle school. Four security doors have been installed, Stamps said, citing the exterior door, the secure vestibule, one between the high school and middle school and one between the middle school and the nurse’s office.

At the DBOE meeting June 17, Stamps said old cabinets have been pulled out and walls have been scrubbed, sanded and primed. Some of the walls have been painted a light gray. Each classroom on the middle school floor is being “renovated” and “upgraded” since they’ve been used for storage over the last 10 years.

“We had a room that old technology was stored in and that was all picked up last week,” Stamps said. “The custodians have been working around the clock trying to get the seventh and eighth grades floors ready so they can get back in there.

“It’s going to look like a new building.,” Stamps told the board. “It’s a good solid building.

“We are pushing against the clock to get everything done,” Stamps said. “But things are looking good,” The board approved a contract for McKee and Associates Architects to pave the middle school driveway, to include curbing.

In unrelated business, Stamps gave the board an update on plans for academics in the upcoming school year. “Teaching and learning that is high quality. That’s my goal,” she said. “There is a new normal in education.”

Stamps said that she expects to get more details when school superintendents meet with Alabama State Board of Education Superintendent Dr. Eric Mackey next week. “We only know the generalities right now,” she said, adding that the next school year will include traditional classroom academics, virtual learning and a combination of both.

She said that Mackey has directed school systems to poll parents to see which method they prefer for their children and to obtain an assessment of how the educators did during the state-mandated, COVID-19 created shutdown two months earlier than expected.

Stamps said the survey is now posted on the school system’s website and will be put on the school’s social media site. “Because I really want every parent that will to respond,” she said.

Daleville City Schools students will come back to school Aug. 21 and teachers come back on Aug. 10 for intensive professional development training.

“Our teachers have to be proficient in and comfortable with the virtual classroom,” Stamps said. “One thing I have tasked the principals with is to determine who we received (school work) packets from, who did (school work ) on line so we will have numbers to see what areas of our school need help with what.”

Stamps said that some school systems have put internet hotspots on a school bus and driven to neighborhoods to give the students there access to Wi-Fi. “That is one of the things we are looking at,” she said.

The next meeting of the DBOE is Wednesday, July 15, at 4:30 p.m. in the Daleville High School cafeteria. The meeting is open to the public.