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Highlands Today

Teachers Give Good Marks To New Sebring High Building

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By MARC VALERO

Highlands Today

Published: January 8, 2009

SEBRING - Sebring High School's Freshman Foundation students and teachers started their second semester Tuesday in the school's newest addition - a two-story classroom building with the latest technology.

The move from portables and other classrooms on the campus to Building 13, which is the school's eighth classroom building, started in mid-December and was completed before the winter break.

"I have a fantastic room," said teacher Jenn Sanchez. "I have all this really great new technology including a speaker system I didn't have before."

Though some teachers weren't using their in-class speaker system, Sanchez took advantage of it Tuesday.

"It works great; a lot less yelling from me because it is a big room," she said.

The total cost of the 34,225 square-foot building including design, site work, construction and furniture and equipment was about $5.7 million. The general contractor for the project was A.D. Morgan Corp.

"It's a wonderful building it has some technological items that will be very easy for the teachers to use and very beneficial to the students," said Assistant Principal Jim Howard.

Like the new classroom addition at Hill-Gustat Middle School, each new classroom at Sebring High is equipped with a built-in Smart Board, video projector, sound system and teacher laptop computer.

The district's largest school has 25 portable classrooms, but with the opening of the new building only one portable continues to be used as a classroom.

"It seemed like we couldn't get all those people in one building, but we've manage to do so and it's worked out very well," Howard said.

Prior to the opening of the new building, the 18 teachers who taught the ninth-graders' core subjects of math, English, reading, science and social studies were in three different locations.

Freshman Foundation lead teacher Ilene Eshelman said, "we really like it because we are all together. The kids are in one location so they don't have to be traipsing all over the campus."

Except for elective classes, the freshmen attend all their classes in the new building.

Starting this month, the 13 portables that are being leased by the district will be removed from the campus.

Principal Toni Stivender commented while she walked through the new building, "it's like a new house, you see something different each time."

Highlands Today reporter Marc Valero can be reached at 863-386-5826 or mvalero@highlandstoday.com.

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