THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 27, 1995 TAG: 9508250222
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Back to School
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 127 lines
THE BUILDING ON Benefit Road gleams with new brick and shiny, high-tech windows.
Inside, though, under the new carpet, the floor creaks. An old metal light fixture hangs from a wall.
That's OK with Meredith G. Garrett Jr., principal of Hickory Elementary School, which will reopen in September after a year of extensive renovations and additions.
``I like a little squeak,'' he said, testing the 73-year-old wooden floor hidden beneath carpet in a newly remodeled classroom. ``It gives a nice, country feeling.''
It's a theme for the newly styled Hickory: Old meets new.
It typifies a similar theme in schools citywide. When classroom doors open across Chesapeake Sept. 5 there will be many changes, but all have been structured to preserve tradition.
Renovation and construction projects under way at many schools, for example, will help old buildings face a new century.
And a new superintendent has vowed to parents and a School Board wary of radical changes that his goals will build on the strong work already accomplished by C. Fred Bateman, who retired this summer after 15 years at the helm. Most of W. Randolph Nichols' staff changes so far have promoted longtime Chesapeake school system employees.
``We have made a great deal of progress, and I believe we are now in a position to move to the next higher level,'' Nichols said, outlining his goals for the future during an annual PTA luncheon.
Nichols' plans include boosting school safety, raising learning standards for students, using money and time more effectively, beefing up staff training, increasing the use of technology in schools, broadening the community's involvement in education and providing adequate facilities to meet the school system's growing needs.
With all the construction going on in the school system, Nichols said, ``We're on the right road for that.''
Hickory Elementary School tells the story.
A bigger, better school was needed to handle an expected growth in population at the city's southern edge, and to accompany the construction of a new high school and middle school in the area. Hickory High, just up Battlefield Boulevard from the elementary school, is scheduled to open its doors in September of 1996.
The school so desperately needed a face lift that officials asked the staff and students to share a building last year with Butts Road Intermediate on Mount Pleasant Road, so the construction could progress without impediment.
It was a tight squeeze, with Butts Road's more than 700 third- through fifth-graders and Hickory's nearly 420 kindergarten through fifth-graders.
To make the situation more festive, Garrett and his teachers dubbed it ``camping out'' at Butts Road. One student took it seriously, arriving at school on the first day last September with a sleeping bag strapped to his back.
``It went very, very well,'' Garrett said. ``The teachers worked really well together. The PTAs were great.
``The biggest problem I think was that just the massive number of students made it really hard to keep the building clean.''
The combined custodial staff worked hard.
Everyone eyed the prize - the day the Hickory family could go home.
But staff members and students might have a tough time recognizing their old digs.
On the exterior, there's a new entryway; the old ones were closed and replaced by glass blocks. A new wing extends off the side.
Inside, things are dramatically different. There's a bigger, more modern cafeteria. The library, which used to be the size of a small classroom, is all new, with a giant half-moon wall of windows looking onto a courtyard. There's a large computer room and new kindergarten and first-grade classrooms, complete with their own bathrooms.
In stairwells and restrooms lights are activated by motion to save energy, so as Garrett says, being first in the classroom line will take on a new significance.
That's not all that's changed. Garrett said his school has adopted the colors and mascot already selected for the new high school - the hawks, with strong tones of teal, black, white and gray.
The staff is not going to know what to do with all the new space, he said.
``We won't know how to behave,'' he said. ``It's just been the little country school for so long.''
The original Hickory School was built in 1922, a three-story brick building with huge windows that housed first through eleventh grades. A couple of building additions were made later, but originally there was no cafeteria, because the kids brought all their food from home. A huge coal furnace heated the building.
Garrett, a bit of a history buff, has collected pictures of early graduating classes made up of handfuls of students.
He's aiming to preserve as much of the school's rich history as possible.
Around the building, traces have been left, such as a hallway with a brick wall, marking where the original building's exterior used to be.
The architects who designed the renovation and additions ``did a wonderful job of preserving and accentuating the old,'' Garrett said.
On Sept. 1 at 10 a.m., there will be a dedication celebration at the school. Everyone who's ever had a part in the school - alumni, teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers - is invited to attend, take a tour, partake of refreshments and reminisce. Parents and students will be invited for an open house at 1 p.m. that day.
``We're just excited about having a new place,'' Garrett said. ``It's like dying and going to heaven.'' MEMO: Related school stories on pages 22, 24 and 25.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo on cover
Joe Roth distributes globes to the classrooms in the refurbished
Hickory Elementary School.
Staff photos by STEVE EARLEY
Jeremy Smith practices with Deep Creek High School band members.
Workers apply the finishing touches on the inner courtyard of
Hickory Elementary School.
Library clerk Denise Hayden sorts some of the new books at Hickory
Elementary School.
Work is still under way at the new Thurgood Marshall Elementary
School.
File photo by STEVE EARLEY
Dr. W. Randolph Nichols, center, plans - among many goals - to
increase the use of technology in schools.
by CNB