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After being destroyed by fire nearly 2 1/2 years ago, WXII 12's Kim Gebbia takes a look at the new Eastern Guilford High School.
New Eastern High School Facility Opens
With immense community support, persevering school family gets new home.
Greensboro, NC – In the footprint of a school devastated by fire in 2006 stands a new building and a community ready to embrace it as home. Eastern High students attend their first day of class Monday in a new school facility.
The new 273,000-square-foot building incorporates many of the green building features that Guilford County Schools (GCS) is utilizing in new construction to keep operating costs down and conserve energy. Natural day lighting in the building is augmented by angled ceilings that slope toward large windows. Automated light sensors throughout the school save electricity by dimming or brightening the lights and turning them on and off with motion.
The school incorporates a flexible design, with the cafeteria, career center and a cyber café blending into a large, sky-lighted atrium in the center of the school. This area will serve as the crossroads of the school as students flow up and down large staircases during class changes. The 64 classrooms incorporate 21st century technology to enhance teaching and learning. Each room has a portable, digital device called an active slate that teachers or students can use to project writing onto a screen from anywhere in the room. Wireless Internet is available throughout the building.
The original building, which had been home to Eastern since 1974, was destroyed on Nov. 1, 2006 when a fire that started in an empty classroom spread throughout the school. It was the largest school fire in North Carolina’s history. While no students or staff members were injured, their school building was lost.
“For the last two and a half years, we have been eagerly awaiting this day,” said Travis Reeves, Eastern principal. “But we wouldn’t have arrived here so quickly without the flexibility and patience shown by our students and staff and the tremendous support we’ve received from the community.”
Offers of help from the community began pouring into GCS while the fire was burning, and the district still receives inquiries about donations. Individuals looked around their homes to see what school supplies they could provide and sent in checks for $20 or $50. They provided musical instruments for the band, uniforms for athletic teams, furniture for classrooms and library books.
Large companies made substantial donations, including pallets of school supplies, computers and hundreds of thousands of dollars. In total, the district received more than $675,000 in donations from about 1,000 donors.
“The outpouring of support we received shows that when there is a need, this community steps up to the plate,” Reeves said. “Our school family is overwhelmed by the kindness.”
Eastern’s students and staff persevered even though the school was split up at other locations immediately after the fire. Ninth- and 10th-grade students attended class at the Millennial Campus at Bryan Park in Browns Summit. Eleventh- and 12th-graders had class at the Greensboro campus of Guilford Technical Community College.
“Considering what we’ve been through, I can’t wait for Monday,” said Dee Carter, English teacher. “After the fire, we adjusted quickly. We are a family. We all got together and worked things out.” Carter and other teachers gathered at the new school Friday to unpack boxes and set up their classrooms.
Travis Reeves, principal, (left) and Dennis Cole, program director - construction bond program, walk through the atrium at the newly constructed Eastern High School. As the crossroads of student activity, the atrium incorporates natural day lighting and is designed to be a flexible space. The school will hold its prom in the atrium on May 9th.
Students attended classes in a modular pod village at the site of the original school for the 2007-08 school year and the first part of the 2008-09 year. They shared some facilities with Eastern Middle, which is located nearby. Remarkably, with no home gymnasium of their own, the wrestling and girls basketball teams were conference champions this year. The unity of attending classes at one location maintained school spirit, but Eastern students and staff are eager for class to begin in the new state-of-the-art building.
“Everyone is excited about how it looks inside and out,” sophomore Kristin Payne said. “It means a lot to finally be here. Everyone lost a little bit in the past since friends and family went to Eastern, but now we’re finally all together again.”
On their first day, students started new by retiring the American flag that flew in 2006 as the original school burned. A local fire department raised it over the new school at a special ceremony. After Monday, it will be displayed inside the school as one of the remaining tangible memories of the original building. A new flag, which has flown over the U.S. Capitol, was donated by the Greensboro Elk’s Lodge for the new school.
The greater community will celebrate the opening of the school at a dedication ceremony on Sunday, April 26 at 3 pm.
At the opening of the new school Monday, representatives from the Whitsett Fire Department raised the flag that flew over the original school building as it burned on Nov. 1, 2006. Firefighters from the department were the first responders to the fire.
Eastern Guilford's homepage on High School Playbook
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