Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008
People tend to get attached to their high schools, but at some point, sentimentality must give way to practicality.
If you ask Linganore High School Principal Marge Lyburn, Oakdale High is better in every conceivable way than the old building that housed her students and staff.
As teachers began to enter the building Tuesday, they were also impressed with its grandeur.
Tony Miller, a longtime history and psychology teacher who made the transition from Linganore High to Oakdale, came to the school Tuesday to set up and familiarize himself with the new building.
"After being at Linganore for 29 years, arriving at the new school was overwhelming in its size and its newness," he wrote in an e-mail to The Gazette. Miller said he noticed an excitement amongst other staff members – much more than the normal excitement during a school's opening week.
"… This feeling is electric in its impact upon the staff, one that I'm sure will carry over onto the students and community at large," Miller said.
Matt Troy, a business teacher at Linganore, had not yet entered Oakdale, but wrote in an e-mail to The Gazette Tuesday evening that he was excited about the new school and new teaching equipment which would better serve the student population. Specifically, the business department will have brand-new computers, a document camera – similar to an overhead projector, but with a clearer picture and not requiring transparencies – a DVD player and a projector built into the classroom's ceiling.
Troy, who graduated from Linganore High School, said it would be an adjustment to teach in a new building. "It definitely will take getting used to thinking that this is now Linganore," he wrote. He said he was thinking of Oakdale High as a temporary home, and was comforted by the thought that Linganore High would be rebuilt at its original site on Old Annapolis Road.
"I think once the new building on Old Annapolis is complete and we move back it will feel a little more like home," he wrote. "Until then, I definitely will enjoy being in a nice state-of-the-art school and I'm sure the students will enjoy all the new luxuries."
Standing in the massive lobby last week – called a "main street" by building architects – Lyburn said the spacious hallways were not only more beautiful, but more secure than the old Linganore, allowing teachers to keep better tabs on students and guests in the building.
Natural light floods throughout the building from windows and skylights, a feature also intended to maximize student concentration, learning and performance. Lyburn said that studies have shown students concentrate and perform better in naturally lit schools.
The building is a bit more curvaceous than Linganore. The curves create a more relaxing environment than the darker hallways of the 45-year old Linganore.
Lyburn also hoped that the large media center, which contained 15,000 books and other media, and new computer labs would give students education opportunities that they were lacking at Linganore's old location.
