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Highlands Today

Memorial Elementary: Up And Running, Enrollment Bigger Than Expected

Jasmina Meyer/Highlands Today

From left: Fifth graders Karina Cruz, 10, Angel Chacon, 10, and Gianah DeArce, 10, take a reading and science test on Friday during class at Memorial Elementary School in Avon Park.

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By MARC VALERO

Highlands Today

Published: September 20, 2008

AVON PARK - Five weeks into the school year, the new Memorial Elementary School has 125 more students than expected and is still working to get all the computers hooked up and running.

Standing near the large wall in the lobby on Friday, Principal Ruby Handley shows the spot where one can see the full length of the long hallways. One can look down the blue hallway then turn 180 degrees to view the red hallway.

Getting paged and then walking from one end to the other makes for a long trek, Handley said.

Memorial Elementary is the first new school for the School Board of Highlands County since Hill-Gustat Middle opened in 1996

Handley, though proud of her school, is not one to boast.

"We are just like a regular school," she said.

The enrollment count on the 20th day (Thursday) of school showed Memorial Elementary (681) had the third largest student body of the district's nine elementary schools. Cracker Trail Elementary (728) had the most students with Lake Placid Elementary (722) being the second largest.

Memorial Elementary staff expected an enrollment of 559 students. School Choice transfers account for 62 of those additional students.

"We are still adding teachers," Handley said. Six additional teachers have been hired since the start of school on Aug. 18.

Two more classes have yet to be created by taking a few students from each of the overcrowded classrooms.

Teachers try to make it a smooth transition for the students who are moving to a new classroom with a new teacher.

"It's never easy, but the teachers prep them," Handley said.

The new teacher is given an opportunity to be on campus for several days prior to them actually starting their class. They visit the classrooms to meet and work with the students.

The teachers in each grade level work as a team so much of what the new teacher does is the same as what the other teachers have been doing so it's a contiguous transition, Handley said.

With four empty classrooms, the school could accommodate about 100 more students.

During a walk-through in the media center Handley noted a number of computers that have yet to be installed.

"These computer monitors right here don't have a CPU central processing unit installed yet," she said. The district's Management Information Systems Department has been working days to get everything up and going.

Programs have to be loaded and firewalls and security systems installed along with the initial setup, Handley noted. It will likely be another week before all the computers are up and running.

Next to the media center, in the teaching computer lab, paraprofessional Rayann Gullett helped kindergarteners learn computer basics.

"You are doing a good job," she told one student.

"You are doing a good job, too," Gullett said to encourage another student.

Media Specialist Terri Sinclair, who was at Fred Wild Elementary School last year, said the library at the new school is beautiful.

"I like it a lot," she said. "It has all the wood shelves and new books."

She doesn't mind being indoors all day.

"It doesn't bother me that much," Gullett said. "I thought it would because we had so many windows at Fred Wild."

The school's hallways are very quiet, but the cafeteria can get a bit loud with student chatter, Handley said.

With Thursday being a particularly loud day at the midday meal, cafeteria monitors told students on Friday not to talk.

"It is a large school and everybody has just worked way above and beyond to get us up and going," Handley said. "It's definitely been a learning experience,"

Marc Valero can be reached at 386-5826 or mvalero@highlandstoday.com

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