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Consolidated Brooke Middle School Opens Near Wellsburg

Photo by Warren Scott U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., delivers remarks Tuesday during a ceremony marking the opening of the new Brooke Middle School. The structure was built at a cost of $30 million and completed earlier this year.

The principal and staff want Brooke Middle School to be a school everyone can be proud of and a place where all students will be comfortable.

Jennifer Sisinni, head principal, took time from preparing for the new school year to comment on the response from the segment of the community most affected by the school’s opening — about 880 who will attend.

In addition to fourth-graders from the county’s primary schools, many of them will come from Wellsburg and Follansbee middle schools, which have been closed because of declining enrollment and revenue.

Sisinni said a common concern, expressed by students and parents, is adjusting to a new, larger building. She said it’s not a new issue, as many fourth-graders from the elementary schools have faced, and adapted to, attending a larger school.

She said all fifth-grade classes will be in one wing of the building and they will have their own lunch period separate from the other grades.

While the fifth-graders will have different teachers for different subjects, they also will have the same classmates throughout the day, she added.

“The fifth-graders will still travel as a pack, for lack of a better word,” Sisinni said.

School officials have been giving students an opportunity to become familiar with the new school through a series of public tours. The district also will have a student orientation from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday.

Ed Wohnhas, a physical education and health teacher transferring to the school from Wellsburg Middle School, said during one of the tours, “Some of the kids said, ‘Mr. Wohnhas, it’s so big.’ I told them they’ll be fine.”

Meredith Hood, a fifth-grade teacher at the school said the school will be new to everyone — students in all grades and the staff.

“Everybody’s in the same boat,” she said.

Construction of the 110,000-square-foot, two story building was completed earlier this year. School officials chose to open it at the start of the 2018-19 school year, believing it will allow a smoother transition.

The school was built near the west entrance to Brooke High School on the grassy area once used for parking for football games and other public events. An additional entrance has been established west of the building for staff and parents dropping off students.

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