Jackson set to dig in on new high school $70 million facility expected to open in September 2005

Jackson set to dig in
on new high school
$70 million facility
expected to open
in September 2005
By joyce blay
Staff Writer

Four decades after the opening of Jackson’s first high school, school district administrators will break ground on a second high school at an invitation-only ceremony to be held on June 17 at 2 p.m.

"This is a labor of love that was in the planning since McAuliffe (school) was conceptualized," said Gus Acevedo, the vice president of the Jackson Board of Education. "We knew it would happen since the town was growing so quickly."

The new high school, a two-story, 288,500-square-foot building, will be located off North Hope Chapel Road, near South Cooks Bridge Road, on 154 acres.

A $103 million referendum passed by voters in January 2002 set aside $70.5 million for the high school project. The balance of the funds was to pay for the construction of the Elms Elemen-tary School, a gymnasium at the Holman School and at the Switlik School, and for the land purchase for a future middle school.

"I knew this day would come, but in a thousand years. You dream, but after a while, you think the dreams can’t come true," Acevedo said.

Construction is expected to begin shortly, according to district spokeswoman Allison Erwin, and the building is expected to open in September 2005.

Despite the board’s position that it needed the additional facility, not all residents supported its construction. Some parents expressed their concern at recent meetings on redistricting that having two high schools would result in an unwarranted rivalry between students attending each building. Acevedo addressed that issue.

"People shouldn’t worry about who will be attending which high school; they should just be proud," he said. "The older school has the traditions, but the newer one will be a state-of-the-art school. Each school will have its place in the community."

Before there was a high school in Jackson, students who lived in the community attended Lake-wood High School. But even in the 1960s, Jackson’s population was increasing, according to a retirement letter submitted recently by Jackson Memorial High School’s pioneering business department chairwoman, Janice Hall.

"…[M]y teaching career ... at Jackson Junior-Senior High School (began) in 1963, when the address was briefly Commerce Street, then changed to Coventry Road. We occupied a wing at Switlik School, on double sessions, until our building was completed. Grades 7 to 9 were expanded to 7 to 11 the following year. Subsequently, Joseph Clay-ton Middle School was built and occupied by the seventh- and eighth-graders. This school was renamed Jackson Memorial High School."

The district urgently needs the new facility, said Acevedo.

"We need the structure because we need the space," he said. "It will be something Jackson will be proud of."

In other business, the board is expected to vote on a final plan of redistricting for the middle and elementary schools at its meeting on June 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Jackson Memorial High School’s Fine Arts Center.