So
this is where my tax money is going!!! I sure hope the kids who go there appreciate what they have. When I was there we had NO A/C, the auditorium was falling apart (it was actually condemned a year or so after I graduated), we were JAMMED into the classrooms (if I remember correctly, we were 300+ kids over the maximum limit my senior yr.), etc.
Ladies and gentleman, I bring you Cumberland Valley East.
New CD High School has TV studio, 2 gyms
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
BY KELLY BOTHUM
Of The Patriot-News
The new Central Dauphin High School in West Hanover Twp. looks, smells and feels just that -- new.
The scent of paint hangs near office doors freshly trimmed in Ram green. There are no scratches, dings or warped-metal bubbles along the rows of lockers lining the halls. The media center includes space for 60 computers and a television studio.
It's attractive, but without a crush of students wandering through the nearly finished classrooms, cafeteria and stairwells, the building seems a bit naked.
That will change in August, when 1,959 students walk through the doors to usher in the new era of Central Dauphin High School. The old high school in Lower Paxton Twp. will become Central Dauphin Middle School.
"It already feels like Central Dauphin High School," Principal Richard Mazzatesta said as he toured the school yesterday with school officials.
"The kids want to come here as badly as the rest of us," he added.
Construction of the school began in October 2002 after years of talk about replacing the old high school, built in 1955. Overcrowding has been a problem at Central Dauphin and East high schools for years.
But plans for the new school were delayed a year by the board's switch from having three high schools in the district to two high schools.
The West Hanover Twp. school is expected to cost $53.3 million, including construction, contingencies, architect fees and furniture. Construction alone is expected to run $39.5 million.
The new Central Dauphin, slated to be completed by Aug. 15, includes more than 100 classrooms, a 1,000-seat auditorium and two gyms, the larger with seating for 2,000 people.
The cafeteria, with space for almost 600 students, will include round tables and cooking stations fashioned with a "grab-and-go" theme.
The two-story building boasts sweeping views of nearby hills, including floor-to-ceiling windows in the media center and cafeteria.
Visitors to the school must enter through the school office. Cameras will be placed inside and outside.
In case of emergency, Bramer said, the school can be locked down.
Similar upgrades are underway at Central Dauphin East High School, which is in the middle of a $21.96-million renovation and addition project, expected to be completed this fall.
"Programs at both schools were built to be 100 percent identical," said Gail Bramer, the district's clerk of the works.
About 5 percent of the district's 12,000 pupils ended up in different high school boundaries because of the projects.
Superintendent Barbara Hasson said in the past about 55 percent of the district's high school students attended Central Dauphin, with the rest at East High School.
Hasson said students at both high schools whose attendance boundary changed were given the option of staying at their old school.
Those with eighth- grade siblings had the same opportunity. About 200 students were affected by these options, but the district is determining how many students opted to move to their new school.
Some parents have complained about the attendance boundaries, saying the changes are creating racially and socioeconomically unbalanced high schools.