middle school open house

The movie "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" arrives in our mailbox today. The timing is perfect as I was just escorted around the middle school by my youngest for his Open House night. I met all the teachers, two of them taught our oldest back when she was in 6th grade.  He showed me his routine and after walking the halls with him I can understand why he was late to class at the start of the year. He goes back and forth across the third floor all day long. His trek from the main building to where he meets for band is also a long haul. But, he seems very comfortable now and was greeted by a lot of kids as we toured and chatted.

All of the moving classes and hallway traffic will serve him well once he arrives in high school.  Talk about a maze, the middle school building is not laid out in any semblence of order. You actually have to go down some stairs in order to go up a different set of stairs in order to get to certain areas. Nuts.

Talks are under way and a 'town hall' style meeting is happening tonight to discuss the future of our middle school.  The facility is located just off our town square.  The county is in favor of building a new school as the current one has been added on to so many times it doesn't meet any current building code. The oldest part of the campus is very old. It originally served as a women's college way back when. It eventually became a k-12 facility...then the original high school...and now a middle school. Each transformation included a renovation. Now it is a hodgepodge of architectural details and quite 'ugly' and in some cases not student friendly.

The new school would be built a mile south on land the town currently owns and uses as a park. The current school would be traded out to the local university for a suburban campus.  It could be a major win-win for all involved.  A new school for the 6-8 crowd and a usuable building, renovated yet again, for folks interested in taking college classes. The historic square would get a group of folks traveling through with money to spend and the middle school kids would actually have a cohesive, up to date, user friendly campus.

I hope to make the meeting tonight.