THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 26, 1994 TAG: 9408260605
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
Parts of Elizabeth City Middle School look like a hurricane hit it. Other sections look like an unruly adolescent's closet.
But here and there is a classroom, a window, an office that seems to have been touched by a magic wand - clean, freshly painted, newly carpeted and welcoming.
Elizabeth City-Pasquotank school officials are scrambling to get the entire building in order as a $1.7 million renovation nears its final stages.
The day after nine Elizabeth City-Pasquotank County schools opened their doors to students, the middle school on Thursday still had signs out front forbidding entry.
Officials had hoped to begin classes by Monday, but after a tour of the building they set the tentative date back to Wednesday. And that will still depend on how fast the contractor works.
A student orientation scheduled for today has been canceled.
Halls on Thursday were still decked with desks and textbooks, wires dangled from unfinished ceilings, and workers banged away well after the close of business elsewhere in the city.
But Superintendent Joseph Peel was just happy he could walk down the hall.
``It looks a lot better than it did yesterday,'' he said. ``We've made progress since 9 o'clock last night.
``A week ago . . . the whole school was in these halls.''
Delays in equipment arrival, problems with absent workers, and the surprise discovery this month of $150,000 worth of asbestos that needed to be removed have set back the ambitious renovation project.
Still, Peel, Principal Diane Bradford and schools Maintenance Director Jack Ward had points of pride.
Strolling through the sprawling brick complex like alternately proud and discouraged parents, they pointed out classroom walls painted in ``red trillium'' and floors carpeted in ``African violet.''
Dodging debris, they crowed about the redone media center and the small village of modular classrooms set up around a wooden deck outside.
Even when the building is safe for students to return, the work will not be done. The school will open when classrooms are in order, but hallways won't be finished for awhile. Neither will the electrical system.
``We've got things that are not going to be here until mid-October,'' Ward said. by CNB