Addition, renovations 85 percent complete at R.O. Hawkins

JACKSON, Mo. -- When ninth-grader Stacy Goodwin thinks back to her first day of school at R.O. Hawkins Junior High in Jackson, she can't help but cringe.

"I got pushed into a locker, and my feet got stepped on constantly," she said.

Goodwin's experience is similar to that of the other 800 students who spent last year crammed into a building intended to hold only 600 eighth- and ninth-grade students.

The school will be much roomier for students and teachers at the junior high with a 56,217-square-foot addition and numerous renovations made possible by a 35-cent tax increase passed in November 2000.

The $6.2 million project began last September and is 85 percent finished, said junior high principal Dennis Parham. This week, the cafeteria area will be completed and new kitchen equipment and classroom furniture will arrive.

With the exception of the multipurpose building, construction will be complete when school starts Aug. 21, Parham said.

The addition will provide much-needed relief for congested hallways, which made traveling between classes difficult in past years, Parham said.

"It was like body surfing through the halls. You were literally lifted up and carried along with the crowd," said freshman Cyndi Chapman.

The narrow, overcrowded hallways had an effect on teachers as well.

"If you fell down in the halls, you were in big trouble," said American history teacher Kyle Mabuce.

Class in a closet

Crowding wasn't the only problem facing Mabuce and other junior high teachers. A lack of space forced some teachers to share classrooms and others to hold classes in the school's basement.

"My classroom was a former shop room in the basement. There were bare concrete floors, no windows and lots of mold," Mabuce said.

While it was dark and dreary, Mabuce's room did have air conditioning, unlike that of special education teacher Sue Beck.

"My class was in a closet, literally," Beck said. "It was more or less a cave downstairs."

Beck said there were no windows or ventilation system in the 10-by-12-foot storage area where she's taught for the past 10 years.

"If one student came in with a cold, everyone would have that cold because there was no ventilation," Beck said.

The renovation includes 22 new classrooms, which will connect to the existing building on the north and west side.

Beck, Mabuce and three other teachers who were stationed in the basement recently moved into their new rooms.

"I'm looking forward to being with the rest of my department," Mabuce said. "Before, I was isolated. I'd have to come up out of the dungeon to see what was going on."

Jackson parents are also relieved to see the new addition nearing completion.

While she's only lived in the district for the past year, Annie Gipson is aware of the problems at the junior high, where her daughter, Jodie, is now a freshman.

"When we first came here, everyone told Jodie to get a big book bag because you don't have time to go to your locker," Gipson said. "It'll be nice to see it not so crowded. I'm glad the community cares enough about kids to spend money when the school needs to grow."

cchitwood@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128