FAIRHOPE – Freshman students at Fairhope High School will be attending Baldwin County’s first ninth-grade academy when classes resume Aug. 11.
The $7 million facility was dedicated Monday July 26 in a building on the high school campus.
Eddie Tyler, superintendent of education, said the building is the first of a series of academies intended to help students make the transition to high school
“I just felt like our ninth graders if we had an opportunity to give them a chance to still be high school students, band, extracurricular activities, certainly classes that they might have to transition over to take, it would just give them an opportunity to grow emotionally a little bit better and socially,” Tyler said.
He said school officials have been working on plans for the academies for more than three years. He told incoming ninth graders at the dedication that their building will be a good start to their high school careers.
“Ninth graders you’ll have your opportunity,” Tyler said. “It’s coming. You’re still going to be a high school student. It’s just that this is where you’ll spend your day. And, there could be a lot worse place to spend your day. This is a beautiful facility. This facility is right at $7 million when you include all the furniture and fixtures, so we were very excited when it came in. It came in under budget.”
Fairhope Principal John Cardwell said that while students will attend most classes in the new building, they will still be a part of Fairhope High School and will be expected to meet the demands of the upper grades.
“This is not Middle School 2.0. This is Fairhope High School,” Cardwell said. “That level of expectation of perfection that you had at middle school amps up even more when you get here. We’re going to expect a lot of great things from you. Don’t think that ‘oh, I’m just in the academy.’ You are a Fairhope High School Pirate and, to us, that mean something here.”
Tyler said that while most of the work on the academy building is complete, system officials are still waiting the delivery of furniture for the facility.
“So, don’t panic and also I talked to them today and if something happens on Aug. 11, you have a plan B, C and D. They’re working on that, but right now, I feel good about it,” Tyler said.
Baldwin County Board of Education Member Cecil Christenberry, whose district includes Fairhope, said some of the money for the academy came from the proceeds of the sale of the Fairhope K-1 Center school building to the city of Fairhope two years ago. The $2.5 million paid by the city was put into a special account, which helped pay some of the cost of the new building.
Christenberry said he was pleased that the new building was opening.
“I can’t wait to get started and I hope we have furniture,” Christenberry said.
Baldwin County’s second ninth-grade academy is scheduled to open at the start of the 2022-23 academic year at Daphne High School.
