Druid Hills Middle Welcomes Students With Full Makeover

After undergoing a name change, (formerly Shamrock Middle) will reopen with renovations that touch almost every corner of the school. These new and renewed features were available to the public at a recent open house.

The school’s rebranding includes a school color change. Green and white touches are, for the most part, gone and have been replaced with red and black, which are also the colors of Druid Hills High School. The school’s website layout has been changed to reflect the new colors and a new red and black sign is outside the school.

Until this renovation, the school had been using the same lockers since it first opened as Shamrock High School in 1968. Now the hallways feature bright red lockers in keeping with the color theme. There are also fewer lockers and sections of walls that used to host them have now been covered.

New large black and red digital clocks are mounted on the walls in various hallways to help students keep track of time between classes. There are new doors, including double doors with glass panels, and each door has been framed in black paint. The bathrooms have also been renovated.

Each classroom now has new windows, whiteboards and bulletin boards. Many classrooms feature large, clean, new desks. Some classrooms have new tile floors with red and black accents or red accent walls. An inclusive classroom for students with intellectual disabilities, housed in the former home economics room, includes a refrigerator, washer and dryer.

The art room includes a new kiln for pottery projects. All three grades have new science labs, although they have not been fully set up and configured yet but will be finished this weekend. The sixth grade science lab includes new doors leading out to an enclosed courtyard, a feature that sixth grade science teacher and Environmental Club sponsor Jennifer Sauer is looking forward to using.

“It’s motivating, you know. This is my fifth year, and it’s such a big change, such a positive and motivating change. I think it’s going to make the school year a lot easier. … I’m so excited to be able to really do science the way it should be. The students are excited and the teachers are equally excited,” Sauer said.

Some features of the school are still receiving finishing touches. The library is not fully set up, although it does have a bright new media classroom with new tile floors for classes to use. The gym was also closed for the time being because flooring accents are being changed to the new school colors. Student gym uniforms are now red, gray and black to reflect the change.

In the cafeteria, parents and students signed up for all sorts of clubs, ranging from chess to golf (new for 2011), spelling to robotics and everything in between. The PTSA booth was also popular and spirit wear was selling very well.

Parents were also enthusiastic about the changes.

“I think that Druid Hills Middle School is a wonderful middle school. I think it’s really gotten a bum reputation and I don’t understand why,” said Kathleen Layson, whose son will be in eighth grade and whose daughter will follow him there. “The faculty here is excellent. I think the staff is excellent. I’ve had nothing but positive experiences here, and I think the renovation is beautiful. … I have nothing but good things to say about this school.”

“I’m absolutely very excited,” said Ritston Brevitt, father of a Druid Hills Middle alumna and twin sixth-graders. “The paint looks fresh, the chairs and the desks look new. It looks like an entire transformation of the school.”

Shamrock’s name change and renovation process began in October 2010 with the selection of a renaming committee whose members included representatives of the DeKalb County Board of Education, Shamrock staff and parents from each feeder elementary school as well as Druid Hills High. The school board voted unanimously to approve the change in December, and it took effect last month.

The name change reflects the ties Druid Hills Middle has to Druid Hills High. Both are International Baccalaureate schools, both have strong academic and athletic relationships and most of DeKalb County’s middle schools are named for their feeder high schools.

The $2.1 million renovation plans inspired the name change, according to a proposal about the change itself.

Druid Hills Middle opens to students Monday.