GARDEN CITY — Perhaps no school in Cullman County was fully prepared for the new school year, but the faculty and students at the partially-condemned Garden City Elementary School could not have seemed more ready. Especially considering recent events.

The new school year began Wednesday, just a week after it was announced that the school would be partially closed due to an unknown foundation issue. Several classrooms were displaced and moved to portable trailers.

“The kids haven’t missed a beat,” Principal Susan Melton said. “And the teachers did an amazing job setting up portable classrooms. They had just a week to do so. The school was built in the ‘30s. It’s been well-cared for, but something underneath has gone wrong.”

Third-grade teacher Marie Sandlin said she believes the elementary school “anchors the community.”

“I see the closeness of the family,” she said. “I drive a while just to work here. The environment pulls me in, and the building has character.”

Sandlin has taught at Garden City for 11 years.

Cullman High School is no stranger to classroom displacement and construction itself. Construction began last year on a fine arts center and new academic portion of the building.

“We hope for the new academic section to be ready for use by November,” Principal Elton Bouldin said. “The teachers and students don’t even notice the construction at this point, and the construction staff is doing a good job keeping everyone safe.”

Six high school classrooms have been displaced during the construction.

Melonie Hanson, a chemistry teacher in her second year at Cullman, said she looks forward to seeing the construction completed.

“The construction has been going on since I got here,” she said. “It will be nice for the kids to have access to the entire campus.”

Hanson said she’s enjoyed teaching at Cullman High School.

“I like to say I am blessed and highly favored to be here,” she said. “Working here renewed my enjoyment in teaching. I was at one point considering retirement, but now I don’t see retirement on the horizon.”

Hanson, who has a degree in industrial chemistry, has been teaching for 26 years. She spent 18 of those years in Huntsville.

Outside of the construction, Bouldin said today was functionally a day in the middle of the school year.

“We hosted open house last night — we had a tremendous turnout,” he said. “Parents and students were here 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. nonstop.”

At the open house students walked through their schedule and prepared for the beginning of the year, which made the day run “smoothly” according to Bouldin.

Bryeleigh Davis, a junior cheerleader, said she was excited for the new year to start, and, despite being surrounded by nearly 900 students, she felt that Cullman was a close-knit family.

“I am excited to see friends I haven’t seen all summer,” she said. “And I’m excited for the new sections to be completed.”

Davis, and her friend Hannah Spradlin, a senior, both mentioned excitement and curiosity for Cullman’s recent elevation to Class 6A.

“It will be cool to see different teams,” Spradlin said. “We play Athens for homecoming — Cullman’s never lost a homecoming game.”

Some schools without construction or displacement face their own brand of adversity on the first day of classes.

Amanda Cates, an eighth-grade English teacher at West Point Middle School, was met with a special challenge — it was her first day on the job.

“It’s been a little overwhelming,” the 22-year-old Athens State graduate said. “But I could not have been at a better school.”

Cates said that the teachers in her hallway had helped her feel prepared.

“I am most excited to get to know the students,” she said. “My goal is to make the year enjoyable for them — to offer to them things I would have wanted when I was in school.”

Clark Farley, the Principal of West Point Middle School, said he had faced the gamut of first-day problems.

“We’ve had schedule changes, locker changes … a lot of traffic in the early morning,” he said.

Despite the ordeals that come with running the largest middle school in Cullman County, Farley said he enjoys his job.

“I don’t stay in the office much,” he said. “I like to spend time with the kids. I bring in each grade on the first day and talk on a personal level; I want them to know me on a personal level.”

My goal is to make the year enjoyable for them — to offer to them things I would have wanted when I was in school.