THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408260296
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 143 lines
THE POETRY of Maya Angelou inspired the interior designers of the new Larkspur Middle School, set to greet an army of students next week.
Giant tinted windows cast a greenish light into the invitingly cool, white foyer, where students may loll among faux marble columns or sit upon tiled ledges next to an indoor garden with live trees.
If those delights don't soothe restless adolescent souls, a paved path snakes through a grove of fruit trees behind the school, the site of an old farmhouse that used to inhabit the property.
The building, with its wide-open spaces and huge windows through which adults can see nearly every move students make, is a dream for Principal John Sutherland.
``I love it,'' he said. ``The design was really insightful.''
Larkspur, the city's 13th middle school, is one of two new Beach schools opening this fall. Ocean Lakes High also will open its doors Sept. 7.
So far, Ocean Lakes has received most of the city's attention, due to large cost overruns and criticism of an expensive flagpole there.
But Larkspur has had its share of contention. Some have questioned the size of the school, a two-story V-shaped brick behemoth on Princess Anne Road. Larkspur will be large enough to hold about 1,800 kids, Sutherland says, although this year a little more than 1,700 are expected to enroll.
Originally, Larkspur was supposed to cost $16.5 million. The price tag now has topped $20 million, including about $500,000 extra that school officials wrangled from City Council earlier this summer to buy computer equipment for the school.
Last week, teachers and other workers were busy installing computers, furniture and other equipment that still is trickling in. Most are crossing their fingers that everything will be ready when school opens Sept. 7.
``I think we'll make it,'' said Lloyd Thomas, the head librarian who has had some experience setting up media centers in new schools. He helped open the new Landstown Middle School two years ago.
Surveying the auditorium, which smelled of paint and was still bare of chairs, Sutherland said he wasn't worried.
``It will be finished,'' he said.
The last-minute work, however, means the staff likely will not be able to hold an orientation for students and parents before school starts.
That hasn't dampened enthusiasm.
``We're all excited,'' said Pam Harris, a seventh-grade social studies teacher. ``It's like we're moving into a new house.''
``It's ironic,'' said Sutherland, who presided over the 53-year-old Kemps Landing Middle until school officials closed its doors in June.
``We've convinced kids for years that the building doesn't matter'' for instruction, he said. ``Now we're in a new building, and it's going to make all the difference in the world.''
The large building will allow Larkspur to become a real middle school, with sixth, seventh and eighth grades. The old Kemps Landing could handle only sixth- and seventh-graders.
The arrangement of the Larkspur building also will help the staff adhere more closely to the traditional middle school philosophy, which emphasizes separating the grade levels, clustering kids in small groups and grouping teachers into teams so they can work together and communicate better.
Larkspur is divided into four major wings - one each for sixth, seventh and eighth grades and one for elective classes.
Teachers' classrooms will be next to others in their teams. Each grade-level wing, bathed in light from two-story skylights and painted in warm colors like brick, peach and pumpkin, has offices for an assistant principal and a guidance counselor.
Each classroom will have a telephone, which teachers can use to reach the office or to phone parents and others in the outside world. Each classroom also will have a television set.
Teachers can arrange to have videotapes piped into a classroom's television via a remote system in the library. Eventually - maybe as soon as next year - they'll be able to dial a code into their phones and have the video played into their classrooms automatically.
Technology classes reflect the latest trends. The classrooms are clustered together. A technology lab has individual work stations for students.
One classroom will house a literacy lab, with computers and special software designed to help kids who don't pass the state's sixth-grade Literacy Passport Test.
Computers will be everywhere, including home economics and sewing classes.
Art and sewing classes have their own display windows for their goods. Foreign language classes have ceiling-mounted headphones that drop like the air masks in jumbo jets.
For teachers, there's space, space, space. They'll have a separate dining room in the cafeteria. Exploratory course teachers will have offices connected to their classrooms. Teachers on each grade-level wing will share spacious offices, equipped with phones and copying machines.
Maybe that's why so many people clamored to work at Larkspur. Sutherland had more than 500 applications for about 80 positions.
New staff members will team up with about 40 workers who moved over from the old Kemps Landing.
Sutherland is working hard to create a new image for Larkspur - not just Kemps Landing done over.
``We're not thinking of this being Kemps Landing anymore,'' he said. ``We've buried that. What we want to emphasize is that we're a big Larkspur team.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff color photos on cover by MORT FRYMAN
The new Larkspur Middle School, which cost about $20 million to
build, is located at 4696 Princess Anne Road in Virginia Beach.
The front entrance to Larkspur Middle School is an overwhelming
sight when viewed from ground level - whether you're a student or an
adult. The impressive look does not end at the doorways, as the
school's interior designers took their inspiration from the poetry
of Maya Angelou.
Staff photo by CHARLIE MEADS
The two class wings in Larkspur Middle School have skylight openings
between floors.
Science teacher P.J. Crosby still has furniture to arrange and
equipment to store before she can hold class.
Pati Terry, left, middle school computer coordinator, and teacher
Christina Miles check layout plans for the Teen Living classroom.
The bookshelves are only partly filled in the Larkspur Middle
School's library. But that's not all it offers as videos will be
among the stacks.
I love it. The design was really insightful,'' says Principal John
Sutherland. He's standing in the school's common area.
The configuration of the lockers in the Larkspur Middle School girls
gym locker room form the neat, clean lines of a geometric pattern.
But not for long, as classes begin on Sept. 7. Afterward, the
pattern will be broken by the press of bodies changing for class and
personal belongings strewn about.
KEYWORDS: LARKSPUR MIDDLE SCHOOL by CNB