Workers complete small details on Gardendale, Corner schools

Three new schools are rising from the earth in north Jefferson County, with one scheduled to open in a matter of days.

The Jefferson County School System is replacing outdated high schools at Gardendale, Corner and Mortimer Jordan.

The schools are among six under construction county-wide, being funded from a 1-cent tax collected in Jefferson County in 2005.

Jefferson County public schools’ share of the funds was $376 million. With another $30 million from a state bond, the system had a total of $406 million for new school construction.

Gardendale

Gardendale High School is all but complete.

Seniors and juniors are scheduled to move their supplies into their lockers at the new school on Thursday. Sophomores and freshmen will follow suit on Friday.

Opening day for the school is set for Tuesday, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony tentatively scheduled for early March.

A three-day weekend prior to opening day (school is closed Monday for President’s Day) will give the school system’s maintenance department an extra day to get everything in place.

All three schools will have new desks, furniture, computers and other amenities.

For two years, students have been attending all classes in the Rogers Building and in portable trailers.

As soon as the building and trailers are vacated, demolition will begin on the Rogers Building. The trailers will go back to the company from which they were leased, according to Michele Best, secretary to the Jefferson County Board of Education’s director of new construction.

At the site of the Rogers building will be new baseball fields, a parking lot and a field to be used for soccer, football practice and band practice.

Brasfield & Gorrie is building the new Gardendale High School and Corner High School.

Corner

Construction of Corner High will be complete in upcoming months, but officials have decided to delay opening the school until summer.

One reason is that athletic amenities will still be under construction. Athletic packages are bid separately from the school buildings.

With the field house, stadium entrance, home seats, football field and track all currently being built, officials are worried about construction traffic mixing with school buses and student drivers.

Board of Education officials and Corner Principal Ronald Cooper want the school to be complete before students move in.

Another reason for the delay is that Corner must plan for the future split of its campus.

Corner is a K-12 school. The new high school is in a different location, about five miles from the existing school. 

When the new facility opens, part of the staff will transfer while others will stay put, including lunchroom workers, maintenance personnel, bus drivers and some teachers who teach high school and middle school classes.

“It’s a beautiful school and we’re really proud of it. It’s not like anything we’ve ever seen in this area,” Cooper said. “The seniors are disappointed because they won’t get to spend any time in it.”

Cooper is looking forward to technology that will be incorporated in the new school, including smart boards, state-of-the-art labs and even an alarm and monitoring system. “That’s something we’ve never had,” he said.

Mortimer Jordan

Like Corner, Mortimer Jordan is being built in a separate location from the original school.

The new Mortimer Jordan High School is under construction off of Bone Dry Road in Kimberly by Winter Construction of Atlanta.

Principal Barbara Snider organized a groundbreaking ceremony in October 2009. Since October, crews have raised walls and buildings are taking shape.

Snider said recently she was amazed at how quickly the school is progressing.

Mortimer Jordan is tentatively scheduled to open in December 2010.

The athletic package has not yet been bid for Mortimer Jordan.

However, Best said all schools will get the same amenities. She said all three schools in north Jefferson County would be just alike, with the only difference being in size according to student population.

Each school has an individual look, due to community input. Architects with Davis Architects held numerous meetings at each community before designing the schools.

Board of education officials said it was important that each school have its own sense of ownership and retain key elements of its history and character.