Construction progressing
JFK Mid School pupils deal with building issues

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — When a decision was made last year to keep classes going at JFK Middle School, while they tore down most of the building, everyone expected problems.

But everything seems to be working out all right, said Sammy Orr, the school's principal.

Students and teachers have adjusted well to the fact that three-fourths of the school building is being torn down around them to build a new school that will include classes for the eighth grade. When the rebuilt school opens in the fall of 2008, the student population will swell from 550 pupils to 800.

To accomplish the rebuilding while classes continue, the district brought in portables for most of the classes. Only the cafeteria, gym, the elective classes and the offices have been spared from the wrecker's ball. Once the renovation is finished, the offices will be converted to classrooms since new offices are being constructed in another part of the school.

"It's going pretty well," said Orr.

The only problem that school officials have encountered so far is a smell that engulfed two of the elective classrooms from the exhaust of a tractor that was being used in the renovation. This problem was resolved by pupils in these classes join the others in the portables.