Mount Blue Middle School’s renovation project is complete.
By Samantha C. DePoy
Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – Back to school time for many means new clothes, new books, new backpacks and for seventh and eighth graders in SAD 9, a new school.

This Tuesday, when 460 district middle schoolers head back to class, they’ll be heading into history, being the first two grades to utilize Mount Blue Middle School since a two-year $7.5 million renovation and construction project was wrapped up this summer.

For the past two years, students have been attending classes around the construction, coming in some days to find the hallway they had walked through the day before was now blocked off.

Meanwhile, teachers were switching rooms so often that many had all their classroom materials on movable carts, jokes Principal Gary Oswald.

“You would have expected the staff and the kids to be more frustrated, but they weren’t. It was like an adventure for them,” he said of the two turbulent construction years. “They really just rolled with the punches. They knew something good was coming and they were going to get the building they needed and deserved.”

In addition to the nomadic school population, another hitch with the project came at the start of the 2002-2003 school year. On the eve before school was scheduled to start district wide for students in grades K-9, it was announced that the building was not fit for student use after a code inspector discovered several infractions.

That gave students an extended summer vacation by three days, but meant they picked up the extra days on the tail end, having to stay in class for extra days in June while other students around the district were enjoying the summer sun.

That won’t happen this year, Oswald guarantees. The school is ready.

Safety concerns, mainly poor air quality, prompted the massive renovation project.

That, too, is a thing of the past and Oswald says after spending the summer inside the building, he can feel the difference.

Nearly half of the $7.5 project cost was used to install a new ventilation system. New windows were also installed and, unlike the old windows, they open so fresh air can circulate through the building.

A new addition hosts seven new classrooms and a music department and allows for additional locker space. Now, sporting colorful new paint, the hallways are more open and airy as lockers are only on one wall, instead of two as in the past.

There is also a new parking lot outside which will reroute the heavy flow of traffic from parents dropping and picking up their children away from the area where the buses park or drive through on the way to Cascade Brook School.

The completed building meets all code requirements including ADA and for the first time, has sprinklers and an alarm system that is tied into the town’s fire station.

Even the gym has a new look including new ceiling tiles, bleachers – donated by area businesses after bleachers were cut from the project budget to keep costs down – and a shiny new hardwood floor.

The overall result, points out Oswald, in his fifth year as principal of Blue Hill Middle, is a safer school and one that everyone can be proud of.

“I am looking forward to having people happy,” he said. “We hope the kids take pride in their school, and that the community does too. This is really their school.”

Oswald gazed down the hall as teachers scurried about, putting personal touches like welcome signs and goofy posters on their doors and in their classrooms.

“I am definitely looking forward to this year. The atmosphere here is improved. It’s just a nicer place. More welcoming, cleaner, healthier and definitely safer.”

sdepoy@sunjournal.com

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