From High School to Middle School
The new entrance to the middle school.
Many changes have occurred since spring of 2015 when New Ulm Public began to build their brand new High School. Grades 5th through 8th attend the middle school now rather than 7th through 12th. Besides changes in the physical appearance of the school, there are also changes in how the school works.”With the middle school, we have the six houses,” said Michelle Miller, the principle at New Ulm Middle School. “The students have the same set of teachers all day long, so they really get to know their classmates and teachers.” The different houses include: the Mustangs, Mavericks, Huskies, Dragons, Gophers and Cougars. Each hall way or wing of the school represents a different house. “It is like a bunch of mini schools inside of one big school,” Miller said.
Changes in the appearance of the school inside and out have also occurred. The cafeteria contains booths and new tables. The old weight room turned into a room with a rock wall and climbing rope, and the new weight room is where the wrestling room used to be. The new high school and middle school have the same flooring in the gym. “The only difference in the flooring is that the middle school has dots and ladders painted on them,” said Mr.Olson, one of the gym teachers at the middle school. The front offices moved across the hall in place of the councilors rooms. Construction workers opened up the area of the old offices and put the commons area in place of them, instead of being by the agriculture rooms. Shop class rooms were replaced by the district offices. One final change is that there are now two handicapped accessible entrances, one in the front entrance and the other one by doors closest to the gym.
Many people, including the staff, students and public are impressed with how the middle school was transformed. The changes they made to the school affected how the students operate during the day in a positive way. The job of turning a high school into a school for 5th to 8th graders was done extremely well.
