FAIRHOPE, Ala. — When school starts next fall, all 7th- and 8th-grade students in the Fairhope area will attend the same school.

Students in those grades now attend either Fairhope Middle School or J. Larry Newton School, together with 6th-graders at FMS and students in kindergarten through 6th grade at J. Larry Newton.

“The successful unification of the 7th and 8th grades from those two schools in the new school is one of the primary challenges of school construction efforts in the area,” said local school board member Bob Callahan.

The new Fairhope Middle School broke ground in December 2006 and is on track to open in fall 2008, said Mike Keating, director of construction and planning management for the Baldwin County School System. He said the project budget of $19 million with design plans of the 134,000-square-foot facility with 44 classrooms has not changed.

“We put a lot of emphasis on daylight,” he said. “Every classroom will have some natural daylight. There will also be an open cafeteria, large gym and library with reading loft.”

The school was designed by Goodwyn, Mills and Carwood of Montgomery, and the general contractor is Stabridg Construction of Birmingham.

“I am extremely excited for the city, our students and teachers,” said Fairhope Middle School Principal Deadra Powe, who will move with FMS students from their Section Street school to the new facility and serve as its principal. “I think that having all our 7th and 8th grade students in the same place will help them with the camaraderie necessary for an easier transition to high school.”

The new school is sited next to Fairhope High School on Greeno Road, but will be accessible via Manley Road

The middle school construction is part of a five-year, $300 million county-wide school construction campaign, said school board spokesman Terry Wilhite.

“The County Commission did a study and found that population growth in the county will double in the next decade,” he said. “The school system is taking a proactive posture to be ready for that growth.”

The new construction boom is funded by a combination of property taxes, revenue from $150 million in bond sales borrowed by the county school board this summer and a $30 million distribution to the county from a $1 billion educational funding package by the state board of education, Wilhite said.

Next fall, new elementary schools are expected to open in Daphne, Foley and Robertsdale, and new middle schools in Foley, Spanish Fort and Fairhope, according to school officials.

The current Fairhope Middle School will be razed, except for the gym and cafeteria, and a new elementary school built in its place, Callahan said.

“Population growth and replacement of older substandard classrooms are the main factors driving all the new construction,” he said.

Additional construction and unification of grades and schools are planned in Fairhope over the next few years.

Wilhite said the school board should have answers by January regarding where the 6th-graders at the current Fairhope Middle School will be in fall 2008.

“This is a very exciting time in Fairhope,” Wilhite said. “Terry Knight, our assistant superintendent for the area, has been working with a group that represents the Fairhope Educational Enrichment Foundation, the PTOs, local school administration, civic and community leaders, local elected officials and others who have met regularly to get a grasp on the growth and possibilities.”

He said that group started meeting in February, mainly at Fairhope High School.

“Dr. Powe and I have been meeting with Terry Knight planning for a smooth transition,” said J. Larry Newton Principal Suellen Brazil. “That will intensify in the next month or so. We have also been included in the plans for the building of the new school.”

Powe said that she and Brazil had been working to make sure none of the new students felt left out in the process of moving from their old schools.

“One thing we’ll have done by the end of the year is picked cheerleaders, football, yearbook staff and academic and sports clubs,” she said. “We’re going to make sure that way before spring, that all the kids in both schools have a chance of being in all of those.”

Powe said that she has gone through the process of merging two schools before in Grand Bay and Alba when she worked in the Mobile County school system.

“I learned from that experience,” she said. “But I didn’t know at the time that I was being prepared for this one.”

Worker injured at building site

A worker at the new Fairhope Middle School construction site off Greeno Road was injured Monday morning and taken by a LifeFlight-Mobile helicopter to the University of South Alabama Medical Center in Mobile.

“He slipped and fell,” Stabridg Construction project manager Donald Davis said Tuesday. “He’s fine. He got eight stitches in the head and will be released this morning.”

Davis would not release the name of the injured man, who he said was an iron worker working on the second story of the building.

After the accident, he followed the worker to the hospital in his truck, returning to the construction site late Monday afternoon, a Stabridg employee said.

“But he fell 12 feet, not 20,” Davis said, referring to a Tuesday news report of the accident that quoted the local fire department.

An employee with Stabridg Construction’s home office in Birmingham, the general contractor for the new $19 million school scheduled to open in fall 2008, also would not release the name of the worker.

“He’s not our employee,” Elaine Weems said Tuesday. “He works for a subcontractor, M&M Steel Erectors LLC.

A business of that name, registered with the Alabama Licensing Board for General Contractors and located in Deatsville north of Montgomery, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

A spokesman for the hospital also would also not release the patient’s name, citing privacy laws.

Weems said that Monday’s accident was the only worker injury at the site since construction began last year.

“I have found out that he was wearing his safety harness and lanyard at the time,” she said. “I guess the subcontractor foreman must have thought he was working safely. At least he wasn’t up some ladder without a harness.”