New digs for Rota’s class of ’11
Officials hope $24M school will be ready by May 2010
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Stars and Stripes
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Students at the high school in Rota, Spain, will watch over the next few years as their old school is demolished and contractors raise a bigger and better building for their education.
“This is a massive leap forward for us,” Principal Doug McEnery said. “We’re going to have a new technology lab, engineering studio, television studio and actually have a computer lab.”
The $24 million project brings David Glasgow Farragut High School, named for the U.S. Navy’s first admiral, under one roof.
Classes and students currently are spread out among eight buildings, McEnery said.
The school is to be finished by May 2010.
It will be nearly 61,000 square feet, up from the current school’s combined 53,000 square feet, said Bryan Augsburger, the high school’s project engineer at Naval Station Rota.
School officials are preparing for an increase in the student population by 2010.
The school now has 200 students in grades 7 through 10 and that may increase to 300 students when the new school opens, McEnery said.
However, a base spokesman said he doesn’t expect a large influx of personnel at the base.
The current high school was built in the 1950s and 1960s and is showing its age, Augsburger said.
“The new high school will be a very modern facility, new classrooms and new upgraded electronics for this computer age we’re in.”
Demolition of some of the high-school buildings already has begun, displacing seventh- and eighth-grade students, who moved to available classrooms in the elementary school.
The older students use a separate entrance from the younger children, McEnery said.
The new school also will have more of a “campus atmosphere,” because it will be in one building. The design includes outdoor basketball courts and an artificial turf football field, Augsburger said.
