AUBURN, Maine — Teachers and staff are moving into their classrooms at the new Edward Little High School in Auburn this week. The new state-of-art campus replaces the old high school built in 1961. The school will be open for all grades on September 1.
The over 100-million-dollar campus features new safety measures, athletic fields, and vocational programs.
The gleaming modern space called the Main Commons immediately stands out as you enter the new campus. Long colorful lights hang above where students will eat lunch, including at the top of the flowing staircase.
"This is a big upgrade in terms of the cafeteria and food settings because, in the old building, we were in the basement that was never designed to be a cafeteria," Scott Annear, the principal at Edward Little explained.
Annear gave NEWS CENTER Maine a sneak peek of the 126-million-dollar building on over 60 acres.
The state is paying for nearly 90 percent of the new campus, with taxpayers picking up the rest. The school was also built with security in mind.
All classrooms have safety features, including two-tone flooring where students and teachers can hide in an emergency.
"On the brown side you are out of the view of the hallway, in case there was a situation that was taking place in the hallway," Annear said.
Nearly every classroom has a connection door, where students and teachers can move to another room without entering the hallway. Academic "neighborhoods" are scattered throughout the campus, featuring banks of modern lockers and tons of natural light.
There are 10 new science classrooms with a lab and equipment; the old campus had one science lab shared by one-thousand students.
Annear is also very excited about the new programs, which will be offered for the first time in conjunction with the Lewiston Regional Technical Center. Students from six regional high schools will learn new trades, including culinary arts, firefighting science, and cosmetology. The student body also will get a first-hand look at students working on "clients" hair as they head to class.
"What are some things we can do to enhance our region to make out kids employable, to give them a step up over everybody else to give them offerings to prepare them for the future," Annear said.
Work is still underway on a new auditorium that will seat 1,200 people and serve as a performing arts center in the community. There are practice rooms for band and chorus and dressing rooms for drama programs.
Two new gyms and a new weight room will be ready for students when they arrive this fall. Sports teams are already doing pre-season practices on a new turf field. Crews are still tearing down the last remaining building of the old high school, which opened 62 years ago.
New technical spaces, baseball, softball fields, and tennis courts will be completed in the next two years.