Time to Renovate: New Paltz Times 10/15/09

Time to renovate: Teachers rally around renovation for New Paltz Middle School by Mike Townshend

Does New Paltz Middle School actually need to be renovated? If you're asking the teachers who work there, the answer is an unequivocal "yes."

Internally, the 1930s-era building confuses so many people that seeing groups of parents helping each other navigate the corridors during a visit isn't too uncommon.

"We had our open house, people started to bond -- but that's not exactly the type of bonding we're looking for," said Mary Beth Ferrante, a middle school math teacher.

Instead of exploring the labyrinth of the hallways endlessly, students could get down to business and explore learning if the building were renovated, Ferrante continued.

All three proposals for fixing up the building call for clusters of students at the same grade level to be in a "house." Potentially, this would allow teachers to go interdisciplinary with many more of their lessons, tying science into reading, or geometry into social studies.

"This design pulls everyone together," she added. "The entire building has an enhanced flow."

Some rooms in the middle school have no more electrical sockets left to use, nor is the building at all wired adequately for Internet access. A kid's locker might be far away from his class. It can take ages for one child to come back with one forgotten item.

A renovated building would deal with that -- lockers would be right near the grade-level houses "so if they forget something -- boom they're out, they're back and they're back on task."

Ferrante, along with a slew of her colleagues, sits on a special panel of teachers giving direct input to the architects in charge of the project, Rhinebeck Architecture & Planning.

Special education is also a challenge in the current setup. Classrooms for special education can be far, far away from the regular classrooms -- this can lead to a sense of isolation for kids in special ed, teacher Barbara Weiner said.

As it stands, New Paltz Middle School is poorly equipped to handle the needs of people in wheelchairs. Some classrooms are just physically off limits to them. "It's heartbreaking," Weiner said.

Music classrooms will be nowhere near a regular classroom in the new plans. That would keep sounds down to a level of teachable quality in other rooms.

For his part, middle school band director Charlie Seymour said he'd like to see special courses get their due in the revamped building. The plan calls for two classrooms for music, but not a third for choir.

Seymour also wanted to see plans address the needs of foreign language classes. Right now, some language teachers have no dedicated classroom and cart their materials from class to class.

School board member Steve Greenfield thanked the teachers for speaking out. He said the public needed to hear from the teachers and needed to know that they felt the building was far, far inadequate.

"You know what we don't know," board Vice President Don Kerr said to the teachers. He stressed how important their feedback -- or any feedback on the project -- is to them. "Make us do this right. Stay on top of us...I say this to the public too -- we need your help on this. We want to do the right thing."

Superintendent Maria Rice praised the middle school staff for passionate, high quality teaching -- despite the building itself sometimes getting in the way of learning. For instance, two classrooms might have to join for interdisciplinary lessons in the hallway. The teachers stressed that it could be done, but it's not the dream situation.