Northampton Area School District students, parents, teachers, administrators and staff received good grades on opening day of the 2016-17 school year for the renovated secondary campus in Northampton Borough.

“It takes a total team effort when you have an organization the size of ours, to have a successful start of the school year and every day. We have a great team,” said Northampton Area School District Superintendent of Schools Joseph S. Kovalchik.

After opening day, Aug. 29, classes continued through Sept. 2. Following a break for the Sept. 5 Labor Day holiday, classes in the district resumed Sept. 6.

“I would like to thank all the parents and students and staff members for cooperating and assisting with the opening of school and the new traffic patterns,” Kovalchik said.

Approximately 3,200 attend classes at the middle and high schools on the NASD secondary schools campus. There are about 300 staff members at the middle and high schools.

“This was the smoothest, most efficient and safest opening that we’ve had in my tenure, which is 26 years,” Kovalchik said.

Kovalchik said he visited the district’s elementary schools opening week.

In the secondary campus project, Nov. 1 is the target completion date for the Laubach Avenue softball field, middle school and high school marquees and district student dedication area.

The middle school opened for the 2015-16 school year. The 2016-17 school year is the first for the bus loop and revamped traffic pattern in the $80.7 million Middle School and Secondary Campus Renovation Project.

‘Great opening week’

“We had a great opening week,” Kovalchik continued in a Sept. 1 interview with Northampton Press. ”I was at the campus, along with the administrative team and staff, every day this week. I arrived approximately at 6:15 a.m. and left the campus around 8 o’clock.”

In the morning, the bus loop accommodates 52 full-size buses that pull in off of Al Erdosy Drive, turn right onto the one-way north bus loop and park in diagonal spaces at the west entrance of the middle school. There are 10 Colonial Intermediate Unit buses that travel to the middle and high schools.

Traffic flows west from the bus loop to Kids Way and onto Laubach Avenue. New sidewalks have been installed on the campus.

About 100 parents drive vehicles and drop off students at the middle school, and about 70 parents drive vehicles and drop off students at the high school. There are approximately 180 student drivers at the high school. An undisclosed number of students walk to the schools on the campus along Laubach Avenue.

The influx happens between 6:45 a.m. and 7:30 a.m.

“As you can see, that time is a very busy time,” Kovalchik said.

In the afternoon, the 52 buses pull out at about 2:40 p.m. Prior to that, at about 2:28 p.m., student walkers exit the middle school and high school. At 2:50 p.m., the schools’ staff is released.

“We have those intervals for the first time this year,” Kovalchik noted. “For years, everyone was dismissed at the same time.”

Teachers agreed to a slight extension of their work day as part of a new NASD contract with the Northampton Association of School Employees.

“I’d like to thank them because they recognized the safety factor at dismissal time,” Kovalchik said.

The secondary campus traffic plan can be viewed on the NASD website, nasdschools.org.

With one-way and other directional signs in place, Kovalchik said, “People are starting to understand and follow the pattern.”

When asked if problems arose with the new traffic flow at the secondary campus, Kovalchik said, “After the first few days, the administrative team evaluated the traffic flow. Right now, we’re going to stay status quo.”

Auxiliary sports field

Another big test of the revamped secondary campus traffic flow was the first “Friday Night Lights” Konkrete Kids varsity football game Aug. 26 at Al Erdosy Memorial Stadium.

“Friday night went very well. We had the extra 180 parking spots in the bus loop, which really assisted with the parking for that event,” Kovalchik said.

The stadium’s commemorative bricks, box office and entrance steps on the stadium’s west side drew praise.

In addition to the bus loop, the biggest change on the secondary campus for the 2016-17 school year is the auxiliary sports field, site of the old middle school, demolished during summer of 2015. The new middle school opened for classes for the 2015-16 school year.

“It really is intriguing to watch the transformation of the old facility into the new facility,” Kovalchik observed.

The old middle school opened in 1969.

“I go back into the late 1970s, whether it be attending athletic events in that facility as a child growing up in the district and then attending the junior high school in the early ’80s and eventually returning to that building as the head basketball coach (where the varsity games were played) and then eventually becoming principal of the middle school.

“I’ve had a long history with the old building,” he said. “The building was a state-of-the-art facility at the time. And it served the district very well.

“The new auxiliary field is the footprint of the old school,” Kovalchik said.

Old school memories

Kovalchik was asked if district residents and former students waxed nostalgic about missing the 46-year-old middle school, which was designed as three circular buildings, or “pods.”

“I’ve heard from many people who attended the school. They have a lot of fond memories of the school from when I attended and prior. I think toward the end of its usefulness, I didn’t hear from those particular folks.”

The old middle school had multiple problems: heating, ventilation and air conditioning, the swimming pool plumbing, and missing ceiling panels and carpeting.

“It was so expensive to fix the problems because it was a custom building,” Kovalchik said. “With a circular building, everything was a custom cut. And it became very, very expensive, when equipment started to break, to fix it.”

Kovalchik said the new middle school has already proven itself as a district educational and community asset: “That pool is used from 7:45 a.m. until 8 o’clock every night. It’s used throughout the course of the day for the academic program because our students are required to take swimming class. And after school, we have our boys and girls swim teams. And then, we have our community education program as well.”

The middle school gymnasium provided space for a middle school music theater presentation, “Becoming Shakespeare,” in the spring with a play to be presented in November.

The middle school cafeteria is used after school hours for open houses, meet your teacher evenings, parent-teacher group meetings, booster clubs meetings and in-service day staff development programs.

“I’ve had all positive comments about the whole facility. It’s been positive for the district academically, for our extracurricular and our co-curricular activities, as well as for the community,” Kovalchik said. “The whole facility was a new beginning for our district. With new facilities come higher expectations for all.

“What we have created here is doing what we expected and then some,” Kovalchik said.