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Health & Fitness

Morgan: Rebuild, or just Renovate?

The idea of a new Morgan school as seen by the eyes of current students and staff.

Now, like most people of the town of Clinton, I have noticed that there has been talk of a new Morgan School.  The new conceptual plans have recently been passed, which have run up a cost of about $19,000.  Some are for the new school, some are against it, and even more are undecided.  However, I have noticed a surprising lack of opinions from one group that should matter the most: the students and staff of the Morgan School.

Although there have been some students commenting on the school (mainly myself), most of the commenting on the behalf of the students, be it on Patch or in other newspapers, has been done by parents.  However, this blogger has gone into the school itself and talked to those that are there for their education.

First, I spoke with Mr. Stephen Redes, the Morgan health teacher and citizen with children already graduated from the Morgan School, whose taxes would be affected by this new school.  When I asked him about the current school, he told me that “the physical state needs work, but the educational outcome is determined by the student and staff support”.  When I asked him more about the physical school, he responded rather straightforwardly with “It is time for a new school facility.  It can only increase my property value”.  This corresponds with what a lot of the student body has been saying.  My colleague, Emilie Wilk, did an article in the Husky Herald about the new school.  According to her article, one of the students told her that “It’s not that the school itself is bad… it’s just that the building is a little… outdated”.  And personally, I must agree.  Also according to Emilie’s article, “The building committee did the math, and found that it would be cheaper to rebuild Morgan than to renovate the existing school”.

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And for those nay-sayers that are concerned of our education and that building a new building would not alter that, both the NEASC (New England Association of Schools and Colleges) report, as well as the Gilbane Report (done by Gilbane and Thomas Architects), stress that building a new school would bring an improvement to the Morgan School educationally.  Not only would it increase student morale (personally, I am ashamed of our school when other schools come to visit), but the NEASC report stated that “Construction… or renovation… will make a significant difference in the quality of the academic program”.  I think that sounds like a new school would make a real difference to our learning.

Finally, before people ridicule me for being completely biased because I’m a student, please remember that this new school would not be finished until 2017.  This means that no student in the Morgan School right now would actually see it finished.  Not I, nor Emilie.  Neither of us would have anything to gain from this new school.

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