Moving takes over New Hope school campus

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Moving is never easy, whether it’s across the country or just down the street, but the faculty and students at New Hope, think it will be worth the headache, because this move is opening doors on new opportunities and more space.

Now that the new high school building is complete and school is out for the summer, all of the schools in New Hope are on the move.

Boxes on boxes and loads upon loads, rolling through the doors.

New Hope High School is moving into a new building.

The middle school is moving into the old high school building and third grade is moving from the elementary building, into the middle school, along with fourth and fifth grades.

“This building is roughly 100,000 square feet. We’re moving to a 160,000 square foot building and that building over there, it’s probably 80,000 or 90,000,” says Lowndes County Maintenance Director, Greg Wheat.

Wheat put the moving plan in place in January, but this third grade teacher started packing for the big move back in December.

“When you have 22 years of stuff, you have to have like a U-haul, because I’m a pack-rat and I don’t throw away stuff, but this time I did,” says third grade teacher, Sara Hollis.

Wheat says it only took 2 days to get into the new high school, because movers only had to deal with boxes.

The new furniture was already in place.

If only they were all that easy.

“Now, we’re moving furniture from one building to the other building, plus all of the boxes, so it has slowed down somewhat, but I feel like if everything goes well, we should have the middle school moved in two weeks and hopefully, the elementary in two weeks, if everything goes well.”

To keep things moving, the Lowndes County School District brought in some extra hands.

McConnell Brothers has been handling a lot of the heavy lifting, and they say this move is different than most.

“There’s a lot more of it, that’s for sure, and this has been easier for me because a lot of the boxes have been the same sizes and it’s more of just moving stuff that stacks easy and stuff like that,” says Kevin Faerber.

The district plans to have everyone settled in by July 4th.

“Basically, when they get back they’ll probably have what they wanted to bring over, what was left in that room, and they’ll have to go through and decide,” says New Hope Middle School principal, Sam Allison.