Isaac Dickson and Asheville Middle Schools Hold Groundbreaking Ceremonies
More than 100 supporters of Asheville Middle School met at Isaac Dickson Elementary to officially acknowledge the construction of two new school facilities.
The occasion was the formal groundbreaking on the site of the district’s first new school in thirty years.
The traditional shovels-and-hard-hat ceremony marked the preparation of the ground that will hold the K-1 wing of the new one-story school. The program featured an outstanding rendition of the National Anthem sung by two AMS 6th–graders, an overview of the school’s history from Board of Education Chair Jacquelyn Hallum, remarks from local elected officials, and updates from both the architect and the construction project manager.
The new Asheville Middle School is projected to open in the summer of 2016 and will be built to serve 900 students at a cost of $41 million. The Buncombe County Commissioners are providing $35 million, the school district the remainder. The existing facility was built during the 1960s-’70s in a piecemeal fashion, and contains some 3,000 linear feet—nearly 3/5 of a mile—of corridors, many interior classrooms without windows, and an outdated and inadequate HVAC system, along with other deficiencies.
Isaac Dickson Groundbreaking
The site of Isaac Dickson School has been labeled “the big dig,” in reference to the discovery that the land on which the old school was built was a debris field dating to some 60-70 years ago. Construction of the new school, to be built on the same site, was delayed due to the need to remove the ancient debris before site preparation could begin.
A traditional groundbreaking was held, with remarks by Buncombe County Commission Chair David Gantt, Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer, school architect John Legerton, construction project manager Steve Parsons, Isaac Dickson principal Brad Johnson, and PTO co-chairs Deanna Border and Angi Everett, as well as several students.
Following the groundbreaking, Ms. Hallum offered a tribute to iconic educator Isaac Dickson, for whom the school was named. School board members presented a framed drawing of the school and a hardhat decorated by Dickson students to the Commissioners and Mayor.
