Schools on the Northside invested millions of dollars this summer on upgrades designed to make the educational experience better for their students.
From renovated classrooms and athletic facilities to new science and math labs, students will be greeted by numerous improvements when they head back to the classroom this week.
First Presbyterian Day School spent $300,000 to build a brand new science lab with all the amenities on its downtown Jackson campus.
Principal Gary Herring said the school brought on Sheldon Labs, a Crystal Springs based company, to make the improvements. “It has everything a high school lab needs except gas,” he said.
The new lab was created in the only free space on the campus – an outdoor pavilion on the playground. Herring said the pavilion was enclosed, new floors were built and air conditioners were added. Today, the facility looks nothing like a pavilion on the inside, with a multicolored tile floor, lab stations with beakers and laptop computers, and a teaching station with a demonstration mirror.
Herring said all children at the school will benefit from the facility, with students in first and second grade visiting the lab once a week; and third, fourth and fifth-grade students heading to lab three days a week for an entire semester. A science lab is already in place for sixth-graders.
First Presbyterian wasn’t the only school to build a new hands-on facility.
St. Anthony Catholic School in Madison also brought on Sheldon Labs to build a math lab.
“In our first year, we had a state-of-the-art science lab and we found out that our math teachers needed to take their kids there as well,” said Director of Development Mamie Sheldrick. “They wanted to use it to help their students further grasp ideas such as data recording, pie charts, graphs and fractions.”
Sheldrick said an unused classroom in the upper elementary wing was transformed “from ceiling to floor” into the lab. It is complete with graph tables, measurement tools, and charts. There are also tools in place for group work, as well as individual work.
After having new construction or major renovations for the last five summers in a row, administrators at Madison Ridgeland Academy took a break from major renovations to do some general maintenance to their campus this summer. Director of Admissions Beth Yerger said work this summer included some painting, re-tiling of floors, adding additional wiring for technology and overhauling the plumbing system.
Jackson Academy’s (JA) booster club invested about $600,000 for upgrades to the school’s athletic facilities. Cliff Kling, the school’s dean of financial and legal affairs, said projects include the renovation of the weight and locker room, as well as the addition of Raider Hall, a facility that will have trophy display cases as well as team memorabilia.
“The key thing is that all student athletes, boys and girls in the seventh through 12th grade, will benefit,”Kling said. The weight room will have new power racks with JA logos. There will also be renovations above the weight room, with the creation of a multipurpose team room and a changing room for cheerleaders and spirit groups.
“It won’t be a full locker room, but they’ll be able to store their belongings and have a changing area,”he said. The facility was previously home to a drama classroom and choir hall, which have since been relocated to the Performing Arts Center on campus.
Kling said the multipurpose room can be used as a hospitality room when JA hosts tournaments, as well as a location for teams to study videos and plays.
The projects are being completed by Mid-State Construction, the same firm that completed work on the Performing Arts Center.
Other improvements were also made, including adding a new roof on the cafeteria, a project that cost about $100,000, he said. The school’s baseball field was also renovated to include a newly graded infield, drainage improvements and new sod.
SOME STUDENTS at St. Richard Catholic School will be returning to newly renovated classrooms. Construction is nearly finished on a $3.5 million renovation project at the school’s lower elementary, according to Tessy Sanli, the school’s director of admissions and public relations.
“We still have about three more weeks outside, but it won’t affect the school,” she said. The project is the first phase of a campus-wide improvement project. It included gutting the lower elementary and completely rebuilding it on the inside, installing new electrical wiring and mechanical systems and upgrading plumbing. The move affects students enrolled in three-year-old kindergarten through third grade.
Sanli said the upgrades were needed to bring buildings up to current building codes and to allow St. Richard to incorporate more technology. The facility was constructed in 1953. “There was a big push for modern technology,” she said. “We’ll have Promethian Boards in all the rooms.”
The boards, she explained, are connected to computers, allowing them to show digital films and use computer programs to enhance instruction.
St. Joseph Catholic School’s booster club is spending $70,000 to build a new softball field on its Madison campus.
Athletic Director Flip Godfrey said the facility will include a basic field, dugouts, and fences all the way around. Portable bleachers will be in place the first year to seat about 100 or so people. It will be located near the baseball field, so a new concession stand and restrooms won’t have to be built.
Work on the field should be completed for the fast-pitch season, which begins in the spring.
Godfrey said the school’s fast-pitch softball program took off about two years ago and since then, girls have been playing at Freedom Ridge and Liberty Park. He said it will be nice for the team to have a home field. “This will be own, and will make them more comfortable,”he said.
It will also ensure that the team has practice facilities when needed.
CHRIST COVENANT School’s construction includes adding paved walkways, completing some inside work to finish out a locker room at the football field. The project costs between $85,000 and $100,000, and was initiated by a gift, said Headmaster Cathy Haynie.
“Last year we put in the field, focusing on dirt work, turf, a smaller set of bleachers, and installing a scoreboard,”she said. “The field is really an oasis at the back of the campus and affords an excellent football program for students in fourth through eighth grades.”
The school is also adding a new bathroom for Promise Kids, Christ Covenant’s special needs program, as well as the special needs ministry of the church, Son Beams.
The project was funded by Pear Orchard Presbyterian Church.
Christ Covenant also completed a technology initiative over the summer, adding new computers in the computer lab and a new portable laptop lab.
This summer, the school also added two new classroms, four new offices and a new resource room.
Students returning to Jackson Preparatory School (Prep) will also notice a number of improvements.
Denny Britt, chief financial officer, said the school invested about a million dollars in upgrades over the summer, thanks, in part, to donations from patrons and organizations.
Vicki King, director of public relations, outlined a number of improvements, including adding new information technology network infrastructure; a sixth-grade computer lab; an art gallery renovation; multipurpose room audio update; additional sidewalks; updated seating in junior high; and the repaving and sealing of the school parking lot.
The Athletic Booster Club funded a concession stand renovation. And other gifts funded the creation of the Carlisle Room, a new synthetic turf football field, soccer lighting and a softball press box, she said.
Head of School Susan Lindsay said the improvements touch all areas of the school and also make Prep more environmentally friendly. The school also installed a new energy management system, retrofitted the campus lighting system with energy-efficient materials and occupancy sensors and used recycled flooring products in a senior high school interior renovation.
The Veritas School didn’t have any major construction or renovation projects going on. Last fall, the school relocated to Highland Colony Baptist Church last fall.
Headmaster Tim Meeks said in a preivous interview that moving to the location brought the school a little closer to fulfilling its goal of starting its own campus.
ST. ANDREW’S Episcopal School will host a ribbon cuttong for a new softball field on August 19.
Contractors are wrapping up work on a brand new softball field that will include a “concession stand, press box, changing room and restrooms,” said Gillian Viola, director of facilities for both campuses.
The field was designed by Dean and Dean Associates Architects with parents, players and coaches in mind. “Parents volunteer to work the concession stands at games,” she said. “One concern was the fact that they couldn’t see their kids play.”
The new stand, she said, solves that problem. Instead of having four solid brick walls, one wall is a large panoramic window that looks over the field. Because of its location, it will provide those working in the concession stand with an uninterrupted view of games played there.
“We asked parents and students and it took longer to design this project based on square footage and hours than anything on campus,” she said. Work should wrap up on August 25. While work on that project comes to an end, in October, the school will go public with its capital campaign for a new science building for the campus.
Officials with New Summit School and the Education Center couldn’t be reached for comment.
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