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Hernando Today

New K-8 School Debuts Today

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By LINNEA BROWN

Published: June 1, 2008

SPRING HILL - What do you get when you add 1,600,000 feet of branch circuit wire, 360,000 bricks and 3,400 light fixtures?

Just a few of the components of Hernando County's newest school, a 2,100-student school for kindergarten-through-8th-graders set to open this August off Northcliffe Boulevard in Spring Hill.

Not to mention the 485,000 "man-hours" it took to build it.

This morning, the long-awaited Explorer K-8 will open its doors to local officials for the first time in a ribbon-cutting ceremony and luncheon at the site, held at 11 a.m.

"I couldn't be more excited about this," said the school's new principal, former South Florida administrator Dominick Ferello. "I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to open a brand-new school. This kind of thing only happens once in a lifetime."

A prototype of Challenger K-8 School of Science and Mathematics in Spring Hill, the school's two-story architecture will look much like Challenger.

However, the new school's "high-tech" design is expected to set the stage for future school construction in Hernando County, with $43 million in construction costs paying for state-of-the-art hurricane protection, audio-enhancement technology and a rail system to help transport students with profound disabilities.

"The building is beautiful," Ferello said Friday afternoon. "I was over there this morning, and they were just finishing the overhang on the front of the building. Most of the construction trailers are gone, and the only thing left to do is put on the sign."

Furniture is set to arrive next week, and administrators will begin working at the site as soon as equipment arrives, he said.

A zoned school, the school will draw students from the immediate area, most of whom are currently attending Spring Hill, Deltona and J.D. Floyd Elementary Schools.

It will have special transportation equipment for 100 Exceptional Student Education students — many with profound disabilities — who currently attend Deltona and West Hernando Middle School, and may draw as many as 400 of the county's gifted students from across the district for the district's pilot centralized gifted program.

Superintendent Wayne Alexander described the new school as a "state-of-the-art, cutting-edge facility and comprehensive community."

"You have children with the most severe education needs working (in the same place as) gifted students," he said. "The possibility of children working collaboratively and being a true microcosm of the world is endless."

At an estimated $9,500 each, the school's 99 classrooms will be equipped with overhead speakers and small microphones that teachers will wear on their collars.

Much of the school will be wireless, or have Internet and network connections that do not require being connected via hard wires, and each classroom will have four desktop computers and one laptop. Intermediate students will also have 30 laptops in carts.

Other technology components include video cameras and screens in each classroom that can be used for teaching purposes, as well as "Interwrite Pads," or an interactive overhead projection system that will allow students to write on pads and have their work appear on screens.

The school will house a media center, cafeteria and science and computer laboratories, as well as sports fields, tennis courts and a gymnasium.

Its sports programs will match that of other middle schools in the district, with sports such as basketball, baseball, softball, soccer and tennis. Its colors will be garnet and gold, with the mascot being "Eddie the Explorer" bobcat.

Ferello said he has about 85 percent of the school's teachers hired, with all custodians and paraprofessionals in place and clerical workers set to be hired this week.

Officials plan to open the building to parents in July for an official tour, with an open house planned for August.

"I'm very committed to being involved and bringing the community in," Ferello said. "We are going to be out-of-the-box and different in terms of what we're going to do with our kids, and we're looking at anything we can do to make it the 'latest and greatest.'"

The school will also double as a hurricane shelter for area residents, with a special storm-proof roof system.

Explorer will likely start around 9:30 a.m. and end around 4 p.m., though hours and transportation have not yet been finalized. This is similar to hours at the district's other K-8 programs at Challenger and J.D. Floyd.

Instead of group bathrooms, there will be single restrooms on each floor and in classrooms for primary grades.

Explorer's construction was paid for through a board-approved certificate of debt service.

The next new schools slated to be built are another K-8 and high school, built as two separate schools on a 76-acre parcel of U.S. 19 in Spring Hill. They are slated to open in August 2010.

Reporter Linnea Brown can be reached at 352-544-5289 or lbrown@hernandotoday.com.

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