THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 12, 1994 TAG: 9408100168
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SERIES: Back to School 1994
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 183 lines
``Take a load off Annie, take a load for free. Take a load off Annie, and you put the load right on me.''
THE LAID-BACK refrain from an old song by The Band drifted out of ceiling speakers in the cool, empty hallway, as a janitor swept away construction dust and breathed deeply of new-school smells one day last week.
When 1,500 students walk through the doors of the new Oscar F. Smith High for the first time on Sept. 7, the hallways will be swept clean and the tunes will be gone, or at least replaced by some ``reasonable'' music, as Principal Glenn L. Koonce says.
Still, students and teachers likely will see much to inspire them in the $23 million school, loaded with new equipment and state-of-the-art technology. If nothing else, they'll be awed by its size - a massive 277,000-square-foot building on about 50 acres of land alongside Great Bridge Boulevard.
Students and staff will leave behind the overcrowded, 36-year-old Oscar Smith High building in South Norfolk, with 23 portable classrooms crammed onto its grounds.
The replacement school was badly needed, but not easily built.
The process started back in the late 1980s, when school officials tried to buy a tract of land in South Norfolk, a tight-knit community accustomed to having its own high school. The deal went sour when the original owner refused to sell, however, and the school system fought him in court.
Eventually school officials dropped the suit. But it wasn't until March 1991 that they found another suitable plot. They paid $2 million for 168 acres, much of which is wetlands, except for the school site.
Work on the building began in August 1992.
``It's really in the middle of the attendance zone,'' which was expanded four years ago and includes areas of Crestwood, Riverwalk, Oak Grove and Greenbrier, plus a long strip that juts east to the city's border with Virginia Beach, Principal Koonce said. ``It's ideal for transportation.''
But some remain nostalgic about the old building in the old neighborhood.
``It might lose some of its small-town atmosphere,'' said John McReynolds, 56, a drafting and technology teacher who has taught at Oscar Smith since 1961. McReynolds lives only four blocks from the old school.
``Rain, snow, sleet - I walked,'' he said, gazing at the new school from the parking lot he soon will have to use every day. ``But it's a beautiful building.''
From the outside, the school resembles an office complex. Its sleek, red brick edifice is rounded at the corners and inset with sections of glass blocks.
If there's any doubt about the building's identity, however, the main entrance dispels it. The name OSCAR SMITH HIGH SCHOOL is carved into the office counter, facing the big glass doors that parents and visitors will enter.
A sunken area, underneath stairs in a wide foyer topped by a two-story, skylit ceiling, is tiled in the school's blue and gold colors.
``It's nice, and it's big,'' said Jada K. Vaughan, 15, a rising sophomore who has a summer job cleaning the school.
Everything about the school is big.
It now can hold about 1,700 kids, Koonce said, with room for an addition to expand the capacity to 2,000 later. Two two-story, U-shaped wings hold classrooms. A 1,000-seat auditorium, a 350-seat little theater, a 4,000-fan gymnasium and a gigantic cafeteria jut off the back of the school.
School officials will encourage the community to use the building,
Koonce said. The gym and little theater have their own entrances, ticket booths and restrooms. The spacious gym will allow the city to host the state wrestling championships for the first time in years this February. It will be the only gym in the city with a four-sided scoreboard suspended from the ceiling at center court.
Aside from aesthetics, however, the school is a teacher's dream.
``This is art heaven,'' said art teacher Catherine Cuffee, who last week already had begun setting up her huge, cabinet-lined classroom. Sandwiched between Cuffee's room and another art room is a workroom, with kilns and pottery wheels.
Foreign language classrooms have headphones that drop from the ceilings, like oxygen masks in airplanes, so students don't have to go to separate lab rooms to listen to language tapes.
Science laboratories have separate areas for class work and lab work.
Special education classrooms are dispersed throughout the school, and some have their own bathrooms and laundry facilities.
A Technology Lab 2000 - only the second of its kind in the state - has cutting-edge equipment where kids can learn about everything from robotics to drawing on computers.
``This equipment is state of the art,'' said J. Matthews, a technology teacher. ``It doesn't get any better than this.''
Computers in special computer labs are linked together, and some are linked to the central school computer system. The media center - the new name for the school library - has a computerized cataloging system.
Each classroom will be equipped with a telephone, a television and a remote-controlled video system. Teachers can punch a code into their phones and order videos from the library, to be shown at any time they choose.
``The technology here is nice,'' said Koonce, who has been a principal in Chesapeake since 1982 but has never presided over a new school.
He stresses that much about the new school will be unchanged from the old one.
Not all of the equipment is new, for example. Much was shipped from the old building, he said.
Near the front entrance of the new building, a bulletin board will be mounted and filled with mementos to remind students and staff of the old school's history, like the time Elvis Presley visited in the 1950s because Oscar Smith High housed the only radio station in the area at the time.
``This is not like building a whole new school,'' Koonce said. ``We're moving our present school here.'' ILLUSTRATION: [On the cover]
Color art(drawings) by Julie Cooner, age 10 and Umar Glover, age 7
Staff photos by STEVE EARLEY
``The technology here is nice,'' said Glenn L. Koonce, who has been
a principal in Chesapeake since 1982.
The media center has a computerized cataloging system. Teachers will
be able to punch a code and order videos to be shown at any time.
Staff photos by STEVE EARLEY
The 350-seat theater has its own entrance, ticket booth and
restrooms.
Oscar Smith High School technology teacher J. Matthews, seated, gets
some training on the school's new computer system from Mike Miller
of Creative Learning Systems.
Construction projects are on schedule
FOLLOWING IS a summary of construction projects in Chesapeake
Public Schools. The list was provided to the School Board and City
Council by Deputy Superintendent William R. Nichols. All projects
are on schedule, Nichols said.
Under construction now and scheduled for completion in
September:
Treakle Elementary School renovation and addition
G.W. Carver Intermediate School renovation
Great Bridge Middle School South renovation
Southwestern Elementary School renovation and addition
Under construction now but not scheduled for completion until
September 1995:
Hickory Elementary School renovation and addition
Indian River High School, Phase 1, renovation and addition
B.M. Williams Primary School renovation and addition
Portlock Elementary School renovation and addition
Projects that are scheduled to be finished in September 1995 but
must be rebid:
Deep Creek Elementary School renovation and addition
Western Branch Intermediate School renovation and addition
Recently bid for construction:
Park Elementary School, a replacement school, scheduled to be
completed in September 1995
Projects being designed and their scheduled completion dates:
New Hickory High School, September 1996
New Great Bridge Primary/Intermediate-area School, September
1996
Renovation and addition to the existing Deep Creek Middle School,
September 1996
Western Branch High School renovation and addition, September
1996
Camelot Elementary School renovation and addition, September
1996
Norfolk Highlands Primary School renovation and addition,
September 1996
Edwards Wilson Center renovation, September 1996
Truitt facility renovation, September 1996
Indian River High School, Phase 2, renovation and addition,
September 1996
Replacement school for Great Bridge Middle School North,
September 1997
New Deep Creek Middle School II, September 1997
ORIENTATION
Oscar Smith will hold orientations and building tours for
students and parents before school opens Sept. 7. The schedule is:
Seniors - 7 p.m. Aug. 24
Juniors and sophomores - 7 p.m. Aug. 30
Freshmen - 7 p.m. Sept. 1
by CNB