BESSEMER —
The modular trailers that had housed classrooms are gone from the grounds of the Mohawk school district.
Junior high students started the school year in brand new classrooms that were still under construction last year.
Most of a 21⁄2-year, $25 million renovation project has come to fruition at the junior/senior school, with only finishing touches still lacking.
Students returned Monday to find shiny waxed floors, bright white walls and accents of red and black — the colors of the Mohawk Warriors — in every hallway.
“We still have some loose ends to tie up, but everything is functional for the start of the school year,” superintendent Kathleen A. Kwolek said. The remodeling includes more than 37,000 additional square feet, including eight classrooms in a new junior high wing that houses only seventh and eighth grades.
“The entire junior high was restructured,” Kwolek said, and the younger students no longer are mixed in with high-schoolers.
Also complete this school year is a second gymnasium that allows more than one class to run simultaneously, alternating with classes in the fitness center that was completed last year.
New this year are two digital labs at the high school, which eventually will be open for evening technology classes for adults in the community, Kwolek said.
“We now have wireless across the district in both buildings.”
Each classroom has a television hooked up to a computer so teachers can show web content on a TV screen. Each classroom also has SMART Boards — interactive white boards that can be hooked up to the Internet and digitally respond to students.
The district has 84 SMART Boards, Kwolek said. “We have no chalkboards in any building anymore.”
Craig Fisher, who teaches physical, environmental and earth and space sciences in grades seven through 12, sat in his lab with a smile on his face yesterday afternoon. He was eager to show off his room, where the Promethean Smart Boards are a plus. An active vote system allows each student in the class his or her own palm device to vote on correct answers.
VO-AG AND SHOP
The district has upgraded and remodeled its vocational-agriculture and shops departments and technology lab to provide state-of-the art technology, Kwolek added.
Cliff Wallace, the district’s vocational agriculture teacher, noted a lot of the welding and other industrial equipment in his department has been upgraded.
Across the hall, the wood and metal shops have new technology separate from vocational-agriculture, but they share computer and drafting technology, Wallace said.
The agriculture industry is going to need more people in welding trades, he said, adding that the vo-ag courses offer electives in addition to farming aspects. They include welding, small gas engines, residential wiring, electricity and building construction.
His department at one time offered a farm machinery class, but because tractors are too big and bulky to have on the grounds, it offers an automotive mechanics and multicylinder engines class instead.
“If you can do the mechanics stuff on cars you can work on tractors,” he said.
Andy Shillingburg, drafting and workshop teacher, showed some of his new equipment, which includes a 3-D printer, also known as a rapid prototyper. It has two spools of plastic that it melts to mold three-dimensional models.
Also in the shop are several pieces of computer numerical control equipment that are state-of-the art, used in regular machine shops.
WHAT ELSE IS NEW?
Other improvements include a refurbished auditorium with padded seating and acoustical clouds in the ceiling, and a new meeting room for the school board located near the superintendent’s office.
The cafeteria kitchen also received an extensive upgrade.
In addition, tighter security measures are in place. Security cameras are mounted both inside and outside the building, and all doors have keypads and swipe-card entrances.
A private front entrance directs visitors directly to the office to sign in, instead of allowing them to enter the building.
And with dog days of summer hanging over the first week of school, a new air conditioning system in the junior/senior high has made a difference this week, Kwolek said, noting officials have been monitoring the elementary school, which has no air conditioning.
The district is implementing a change in the two-hour early dismissals on Fridays in the elementary school, Kwolek pointed out. Those have been cut back from 32 Fridays a year to 16. She said the students will attend the full day on the other Fridays, to allow for more instructional time.
