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Sardis High School opens
Published August 12, 2006
After two months of anything but school, some things take a few days to reprogram into a teenager’s ever-expanding mind.
For instance, you almost expect the rookies to have a hard time finding their way around a new school. But when kids who have navigated the halls for half a decade have to stop and reset their bearings, red lights ought to start flashing.
To the students’ credit though, something big is going on at Sardis High School. The community officially opened its doors to the new state-of-the-art expansion Thursday morning, and everything went surprisingly smooth.
“It’s all gone better than we could’ve hoped for, really,” Sardis principal Gerald Beard said. “The kids are excited, the teachers are excited and I’m probably more excited than everybody.”
Beard, who called Thursday’s grand opening the most exciting moment of his 28-year professional career, couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he directed hall traffic and put out scheduling fires all morning.
“Last year, my office was in a storage closet, and now we’ve got this,” Beard said, pointing to the new office complex. “I don’t know what else to say, other than I’m in hog heaven.
“I’m just so thrilled to work in a community that cares this much about their children’s education. It’s great to know that when we ask for something, our leaders listen to us and respond. I can’t thank our legislators, school board and parents enough for their support.”
Along with the new office – which allows both principals and the counselor to be in the same location – Sardis now has a separate gym and science lab for the middle school, 12 new classrooms, a new library and plaza-like break areas in the schoolyard.
“Last year, our teachers all had to share classrooms. When they had their planning period, they just had to sneak away and try to find a quiet spot,” Beard said. “But now, everybody’s got their own room. They’re pretty happy about that.”
Middle school physical education teacher Linda Hicks no longer has to share a gymnasium with the high school classes. She thinks it’ll be nicer for the kids because they’ll have more opportunities to participate in the fun activities her class offers.
“Right now we’re just trying to instill an element of pride in them,” Hicks said. “I just got through telling my boys and girls that this gym should look the exact same when they graduate.”
When asked about the improvements of the school, Hicks didn’t miss a beat as she replied, “It’s 100 percent better than it used to be. And I’ve been here for 100 years, so I should know.
“It really is a dream come true to watch all this finally happen.”
Beard also pointed out that the middle school would no longer be on a four-period, block schedule; rather, it would go to a six-period day. The high school will stay block, but test data shows that middle schools on block schedule in Etowah County performed considerably lower on the standardized tests than those students who weren’t.
“I think it makes perfect sense to do this,” Beard said. “When you take all your math in the fall and don’t have any in the spring, some of that stuff can get hard to remember. I think our scores should go up because of this switch.”
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