New School Heralds Dawn of a New Era

In the dark days, before windows and light, Kelley Williams didn't know whether to come to work at Gov. Thomas Johnson Middle School in Frederick County wearing an arctic parka or a sun dress. Like the building itself, the old school's climate control system was decidedly decrepit. Temperamental. Absolutely unpredictable.

That all changed on Monday, when the middle school's new, $18.2 million building opened to students, equipped with 268 new computers, tons of new books and, perhaps most important, heating and air conditioning that work properly.

And don't forget the windows--hundreds of them, all over the place. The old school had precisely two sets of windows, one at each end of a long, dark hallway.

"You'd go into one classroom and the kids would be sweating in the winter, and you'd go to another room and it would be freezing," said Williams, the school's media specialist and a 14-year veteran of the old school. "It was pretty bad."

The opening of the 122,000-square-foot school marks the first significant step in an $80 million building campaign that Frederick County public schools officials hope will keep pace with the county's ballooning population.

Beginning this school year, construction crews will embark on five new projects, and three others began over the summer, said Ray Barnes, the school district's executive director of facility services. Much of the work will be renovation, but the district plans to finish two new schools--Thurmont Primary School and Oakdale Elementary School, east of Frederick city--by the end of 2001.

The district's enrollment, about 36,800, has increased by 31 percent over the last decade. So the new Gov. Thomas Johnson Middle School serves as a sort of starting line for the school district's race to accommodate the continuing crush of new students.

"Over the next two years we will be in the midst of the biggest building boom we have ever experienced," said school district spokeswoman Marita Loose.

For students, parents and teachers who visited the new middle school during two open houses last week, the pleasure of having their own space far outweighed the school's place in the school district's overall growth plan.

"In the old school, we were enclosed in a box," said secretary Debbie Cantler, who directed traffic recently in the new school's main foyer, as hundreds of open-mouthed parents gaped at the shimmering splendor of the building's interior--light, airy and clean. "It was hard to feel like a school of your own."

Since it opened in 1966, Gov. Thomas Johnson Middle School--then called Gov. Thomas Johnson Junior High School--occupied a portion of the same building as Gov. Thomas Johnson High School. The two schools were in separate parts of the building, but shared common spaces such as the gym and assembly hall. Now, the new middle school is situated about a quarter-mile from its former location, and the high school is undergoing a $30 million renovation.

When the schools were under one roof, middle school students were generally kept separate from high school students. But some intermingling was inevitable--and not always wholesome, said the middle school's principal, Carolyn Kimberlin.

"High schoolers are more demonstrative of their affections" toward one another, she said. "And my middle schoolers didn't need to see that."

As recently as a week ago, the school was expected to have about 820 students--well shy of the school's 900-student capacity. But on opening day, administrators welcomed 910 students.

"That's where the portable buildings are supposed to go," Kimberlin said, pointing toward a grassy space behind the new school building. "But we're hoping that won't be for a while."