ECP prepares to move into new high school
Walking into Elmore City-Pernell’s new high school building, one of the first things visitors may notice is a distinctive “royal purple” hue—one of the school district’s official colors—tastefully incorporated into everything from flooring to furnishings to light fixtures.
The 22,500-square-foot building, funded by a $8.1 million bond issue passed in 2019, is nearly ready to be occupied. An inspection by the fire marshal is needed before a firm move-in date is announced, but Elmore City-Pernell Superintendent Sheila Riddle said she anticipates students and staff should be in the building in the next few weeks.
Most of ECP’s high school students have not been inside the building yet, especially in these last few weeks as the flooring has gone in and finishing touches have been added.
“I can’t wait. I can’t wait to see their faces when they walk in,” Riddle said.
A 1,700-square-foot commons area near the front entrance features distinctive circular lighting fixtures that glow purple. The area will be furnished with tables and chairs, booths and other seating for students to utilize. A television screen will hang on the south wall and will feature announcements, videos of students, and other media. The space will also have portable charging stations for students to use with their devices.
“This is an area for our students just to come in and work on homework or whatever. It’s a commons area like you would find on a college campus, like a student union,” Riddle said. “So just a hang-out place for our students to be able to eat lunch, do homework, have academic meets, meetings, etcetera. It gives them a place to be when the weather doesn’t allow them to be outside.”
And when the weather does allow for students to enjoy the outdoors, there is a landscaped courtyard with picnic tables and umbrellas.
A glassed-in front office area greets students and visitors, the counselor’s office has a special student entrance for more privacy, and the staff office area includes a conference room for meetings and trainings.
Riddle said the district plans to eventually add a new digital marquee sign on the corner of the property, near N. Muse Avenue and E. Lindsay Street (Highway 29).
“We’re all just really excited to move-in. I think it’s going to really be a boost to the morale of the students, as well as the staff,” ECP High School Principal Angela Doss said.
Three previous Elmore City High Schools have occupied the same site. The first was built in 1908, followed by another in 1925, and then the 1956 building that was demolished in July of 2020 to make way for this newest building.
The new building will include a plaque set into the wall of the front foyer that pays homage to those older buildings with photos and text memorializing the history of the site.
In the two years since the old building was demolished, the district’s nearly 170 high school students have been learning in 11 portable buildings set on the ECP campus to house them during the construction process.
“We are extremely excited about having room for the kids, because we’ve been so cramped in the portables, just for them to spread out, to have some space, to have a nice environment,” Doss said. “It just makes everything feel better when you have a nice environment. And it just puts you in a whole different frame of mind for learning. So, that’s going to be a great thing.”
The new building has a science lab, something they didn’t have previously, and a STEM classroom that will house the district’s new aviation and drone program, STEM classes and a robotics program.
“For us to have a functional science lab here is exciting,” Superintendent Riddle said. “It has been a long time since they were able to actually go in and work experiments and do those types of extras with their science program. So, we’re excited to have that again here, to get the handson experience to prepare kids who are going to move on to college, or any kind of field that has work with science – health fields, oil fields. We’ll be able to start building that program.”
The high school’s STEM classroom is outfitted with plenty of storage space and shelving units to store equipment and supplies. The room will be furnished with movable tables and chairs that can be rolled out of the way to open floor space for robotics courts.
The district’s newly renovated Jim Coffey Technology Center, located across the street from the high school, has similar STEM classrooms for middle school students. Those classrooms were also added as part of the 2019 bond issue.
“We have really invested a lot of time and energy into the STEM programs. And so, we have STEM labs at the elementary school, at the middle school now, and at the high school,” Riddle said. “We also have invested a lot into building a robotics program.”
School administrators had originally hoped to be in the new high school building in January, but material delays slowed the construction process.
“We are very fortunate though because when COVID hit in 2020, and we bid the project out in June of 2020, we were actually able to get lower pricing on those bids, which saved our community and our school district money,” Riddle said. “With the shutdown everybody was looking for work, they were needing the work, and so our bids were coming in lower than we anticipated.”
The savings allowed the district to add some extras to the building which were not part of the original plan, including the purple light fixtures in the commons area and signage for the corner, and to put a little more money into extra furniture and technology. Even with the extras, Riddle said the project has come in under budget.
“And we will have funds left over as well, so the money has been managed well. That will allow us to do some updates around the district that we possibly would not have been able to do without it,” she added.
The ECP Board of Education is planning to sponsor an open house for the community at the new high school later in the year, after staff and students are moved in. The district is also working with local Masons to schedule a cornerstone dedication and time capsule placement.
With the completion of the new high school, all of ECP’s school buildings are less than 20 years old – a new elementary school was built in 2004 and the middle school was built in 2014. Riddle said in the short-term, the district still must finish the parking lot at the elementary school, another project that was part of the 2019 bond issue. But the district’s long-term goals include updating its athletic facilities.
“We have taken care of all of our educational facilities, now we would like to look at updating our extracurricular activity facilities,” Riddle said. “And that will be a few years down the road, but not too far down the road.”
The new school facilities certainly benefit ECP’s students, but Riddle said they are also an asset to the community.
“It really is an investment in our community,” Riddle said.
