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Former intermediate school gets an impressive makeover
Melinda Skutnick photo
School board member Sue Wilson admires the new gymnasium at the intermediate-turned-middle school.
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Published: May 15, 2009
As renovations to the new Mooresville Middle School on Kistler Farm Road near completion, the Mooresville Graded School District's former intermediate campus looks vastly different than a year ago.
Board of education members viewed those upgrades Tuesday, prior to their monthly meeting, when they toured the 144,358-square-foot middle school. It boasts several additions since Mooresville Intermediate students and faculty departed the facility in June 2008.
Among the school's interior changes are a new gym – newly constructed with a seating capacity of approximately 700 – with a concession stand and bathrooms, four locker rooms, eight science labs, four teacher preparation rooms for science labs, two regular classrooms and a technology lab.
"The science labs are … a definite upgrade for the middle school," said MGSD Director of Operations Stephen Mauney. "Presently, in the existing middle school, science classes are taught in regular classrooms.
"Now they'll have lab tables (with) numerous sinks in each science lab, so if they want to do any lab work, those facilities are available to them."
Outside the building, upgrades include six lighted tennis courts, a lighted football/soccer field with an eight-lane track, a lighted baseball field with dugouts and a new parking lot.
Mauney noted that middle school baseball currently requires the transportation of students to Moor Park on South Broad Street for games. He added that the new track will provide additional space for the growing track and field teams in the district.
"It'll be a good way to separate the middle school and high school track teams," he said.
The approximate $9 million upgrade included many renovations to the former intermediate school, upfitting the campus for middle school students and faculty when it opens in August.
In addition to paint and replacing the blue accents with red and black, the administrative office area was renovated to create two additional offices and a conference room, which Mauney said will serve as "a place for small group meetings or parent meetings."
The former MIS gym was revamped and split in half to create a band room and an auxiliary gym.
"At the existing middle school, they just have the one gym. Now they'll have a larger gym plus an auxiliary," Mauney added, noting that it provides MMS with additional athletic and physical education space.
A former art classroom was upfitted as a life skills classrooms and two rooms previously utilized as computer labs received minor work to create a staff development room and a help desk for the digital conversion laptops.
Lastly, the school's media center saw an expansion as its holdings are slated to increase, providing a larger library selection to students.
"I'm very excited about moving into this new facility," Mauney said Thursday, noting that little renovation work still remains: acoustical treatments in the band room, some athletic field work and the completion of interior painting. Those tasks, he added, should be finished by mid-June when relocation is slated to begin.
Teachers, he added, should be able to move into their classrooms in mid-July.
"The layout of the school provides much more space," Mauney said. "At the existing middle school, we have 13 classes held in megaunits. This new facility is allowing us to have room for growth without bringing in any megaunits, which is always a great benefit to the system."
The relocation of MMS to its campus will increase functional capacity from 1,274 to 1,482 students, allowing for the projected growth estimated by the district, which Supt. Mark Edwards noted at Tuesday's meeting.
"I think it's going to be a facility that will serve the students very well for many, many years," he said, adding that the intermediate-turned-middle school has the feel of a new facility.
Mauney agreed.
"With all the renovations, both on the exterior and from inside the existing building, it feels to me like a new school," he said.
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