Clarke County School District Superintendent Dr. Robbie P. Hooker cuts the ceremonial ribbon at Clarke Middle School to open the building to the public on July 30. After the school’s rebuilding took place throughout the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, the new building will open its doors to students on Aug. 1. “This is a great occasion, we should be proud of this building,” Hooker said in a prepared statement. “Other districts will want to emulate this great facility and we look forward to our students arriving.” Photo by Wyatt Meyer
Ahead of the first day of the 2024-25 school year, CCSD leaders cut the ceremonial ribbon on the new Clarke Middle School building on July 30.
At long last, Clarke Middle School students and faculty have their new facility.
The building, constructed throughout much of the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, was opened to the public in a ribbon-cutting ceremony on July 30.
Clarke County School District Superintendent Dr. Robbie P. Hooker and Clarke Middle School interim principal Derrick Maxwell both read statements before cutting the ribbon and allowing the crowd of more than 100 students, staff and community members to enter the building.
“This is a great occasion. We should be very proud of this building, not only of this building, but of our contractors who have done a great job (building it),” Hooker said. “We look forward to our students arriving here.”
A crowd forms around the ribbon cutting ceremony at the new Clarke Middle School location on July 30. CMS parent and attendee Mimi Maumus was impressed by the new building’s design. “I think it’s beautiful, (it) looks comfortable. It looks like a good environment for learning,” Maumus said. “I think it’s great that the kids are excited to be in the new building because I think it makes them even more excited about the school year.” Photo by Wyatt Meyer
While some attendees conversed with Hooker, Maxwell, and CCSD Board of Education members in a lobby area, current CMS staff led building tours for those interested in seeing the new building.
“(I was impressed) with the school, it just looks clean and new,” Gabby Gantt, a CMS seventh grader, said. “This one is bigger, (and the old one) was kind of small with writing on the wall.”
A map shows Dudley Drive, which will be used as an additional entrance for the new building.In addition to a new entrance, CMS interim principal Derrick Maxwell said the layout of the school is designed with growth in mind. “I think the school was built for approximately 1200 students, and we’ll have about 800,” Maxwell said. “(The new building) gives it a much less cramped feeling, so we have plenty of space to grow.” Map by Lea D’Angelo
The new facility was built according to a vastly changed blueprint and different land plot, with an entrance directly to the school on Dudley Drive. Among the building’s features are extra, non-traditional classrooms that foreign language department teacher Dr. Nathalie Guerin is excited to use.
“I looked at a colleague, and I said, ‘You know what? We could totally do this crafty activity that I would never try to do on this new carpet’ and we were looking outside and were like, ‘In that terrace area, we could totally try to have a lesson about this,’ in ways we couldn’t have ever done in our old space,” Guerin said.
Dr. Nathalie Guerin, a Clarke Middle School foreign language department teacher, stands at the Clarke Middle School’s ribbon-cutting ceremony on July 30. Guerin, a nearly 20-year veteran of CMS, felt proud upon seeing the school opened to the public. “This (school community) is like a second family to me, and so this was an opportunity to participate in a celebration that I won’t ever get to celebrate again.” Photo by Wyatt Meyer
CMS will open its doors to students again during an open house at 3:30 on July 31 before the first day of the 2024-25 school year on Aug. 1.
“I’m looking forward to the students coming back,” Maxwell said. “I think it’s gonna be a great experience and (I am) ready to see the look on (students’) faces when they get to see their new space for the first time.”
