High School front office moved to auditorium; parents need to drop off, pick up kids there for now
If you are driving on Main Street in Newcastle, you’ll notice heavy equipment on the Newcastle High School campus. Superintendent Dr. Cathy Walker said these are construction crews locating current water lines, internet cables and infrastructure before they start the main dirt work for the high school bond issue project.
The Board of Education approved payment for this work at their June meeting, and they just approved a payment of $26,323,816 to Nabholz Construction for the high school addition.
“Passing this payment allows us to go beyond the dirt work,” Dr. Walker said. “We’ve gone out to bid, and now this gives us the money to enter into a contract for the framing, concrete work, etc.”
She said, “I truly appreciate the patrons for passing this bond and providing for the exciting things that are happening at our schools in Newcastle.”
Dr. Walker said this is just the beginning of projects at the high school that will take up to three years.
School Board President Tiffany Elcyzyn said this is the biggest expense of the bond issue work voters approved at the August 23, 2022, election. While work is underway at all school sites in the district, the high school project is the most extensive. It will have a new front office, new commons areas, classrooms, a new special education classroom, two new Family and Consumer Sciences classrooms where students will be able to cook and do sewing and other projects, and a new band room which doubles as a safe room. They are remodeling the freshman center, adding classrooms and a new library where those classrooms are to be located. Within the classrooms will be a state-ofthe art chemistry lab, and science laboratories.
Dr. Walker said the school will have new signage which will be placed at the various sites informing the public and showing how the finished projects will appear.
She said an immediate change is that the high school’s front office is being relocated to the auditorium, and parents will be needing to pick up or drop off their students to temporarily check in at the auditorium. Parking is also going to look different, she said. The school district will send out messaging to the public on where cars can legally park for athletic events as the season progresses. She added that for the students there is plenty of parking.
Elcyzyn said people will need to be patient and expect a lot of changes at the high school.
“There are a lot of variables and we have to protect the kids,” Elcyzyn said. “It will be a giant construction site for the next year-and-a-half.”
Dr. Walker said the school will have much of its information on the district’s website, and much of the communication about changes will go through Newcastle High School Principal Adam Hull.
She also wants the public to know that projects are ongoing at all school sites. She said the middle school projects are well underway with a completion date set for the beginning of January. New turf and equipment should be complete by Labor Day at both the elementary playground and the Early Childhood Center playground.
She also noted that the portable air conditioners the district leased for the high school gymnasium are now gone, and air conditioning will greet those who go to the gymnasium for this year’s volleyball season. Air conditioning is now in place in the gymnasium the locker rooms, the lobby and the offices.
