Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 29, 1995 TAG: 9508290036
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FINCASTLE LENGTH: Medium
For the past several days, the school's staff and construction workers had been working against the clock to make sure the school opened on time Monday after a summer of renovation.
"We are going through a transition from old to new," said Barlow, the school's principal. "It has been a team effort to get the school opened."
That meant that teachers had to put down lesson plans and pick up buckets and mops to clean away dust the construction had left.
"The teachers are here for the students," Barlow said. "They said they'd do what is necessary to get the school open."
The construction crews worked deep into the night, even on Sunday.
On Monday, the progress was measured by coats of fresh paint and a chill in the air. The new air conditioning started working about 11:30 a.m.
"When the air conditioning came, the students sighed and their brains opened up," said Heidi Maust, a seventh-grade math teacher.
Maili Boudreaux, 13, an eighth-grader, viewed the changes more pragmatically.
"It looks real nice," she said. "I'm surprised. It never looked this clean before."
The changes have been a little more substantive than that. Two-thirds of the school windows have been replaced to accommodate the new cooling and heating system.
The $5 million renovation will give the school a new gym and office and a bundle of renovated classrooms with lighter tiles, brighter lights and new suspended ceilings.
Still, there are concessions to remodeling. The school's nursing station is housed temporarily next to the fiction section in the library until a new clinic is completed.
The principal's office is in a trailer outside.
Those inconveniences may be the way of life at the school this year as the county readies itself for a change to a middle school system next year.
This year, Botetourt Intermediate will house only seventh- and eighth- graders. Next year, it will join a new $9 million middle school in Cloverdale in housing sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders.
Rod Dillman, assistant superintendent of Botetourt County schools, said those changes must be made to accommodate a booming student population in some of the county's elementary schools.
For their part, the construction workers just kept on pushing Monday as smiling schoolchildren roamed the halls. The hum of electric screwdrivers intermingled with adolescent laughter and the occasional ringing of school bells.
"Feel how cool it is," said Maust, the math teacher. "The students are very impressed."
by CNB