‘Exceeding expectations’: Principals discuss new school campuses

Opening a new school campus brings its own challenges in a normal year, much less during a pandemic.

Yet both Vestavia Hills High School Principal Tonya Rozell and Pizitz Middle School Principal Chris Pennington said their two new campuses — the freshman campus and the new Pizitz Middle School campus— have gotten off to a great start.

FRESHMAN CAMPUS

Rozell, who is in her first year as principal at the high school, said from her view, the new freshman campus has been amazing. “I think it’s exceeding expectations,” she said.

The campus opened this year in the former Pizitz Middle School building, just five minutes from the main campus.

“Even in the middle of a pandemic … I could not have asked for a more seamless transition and opening of a school,” Rozell said.

Creating the freshman campus involved looking at it from a facility, staff and student perspective, Rozell said. Facility upgrades had been happening for about a year, and leaders worked to ensure there were spaces suitable for students. Staffing took about a year as well, as the school system worked to transition many ninth grade teachers from the main campus and moved them to the freshman campus, as well as hiring new teachers, Rozell said.

“People there are fully invested in teaching ninth graders,” Rozell said.

Students have enjoyed it so far, too, the principal said. With ninth grade being the place where students from both Pizitz Middle School and Liberty Park Middle School come together for the first time, the campus is unique.

“They love it,” Rozell said. “It’s given the man opportunity to make new connections.”

One of the new features of the campus is the second-period advisory period, Rozell said, which was a strategic move by school leaders to help both students and staff. With some students traveling back and forth between the freshman campus and the main campus in the morning, the advisory period allows those students en route plenty of time to get back so they don’t miss any academic instruction, Rozell said. For students who are on campus, that period is used to prepare them for the transition to the main campus, teaching them about character, leadership development, time management, organization skills and other such topics.

The campus’s bell period mirrors that of the main campus, which means freshmen are afforded all of the same extracurricular activities, Rozell said.

It’s important to remember that while freshmen are educated at their own campus, they are part of the high school student body, and decisions made for the main campus affect freshmen as well, she said. School leaders had intended to bring them to pep rallies, but the pandemic has made that impossible, she said. However, freshmen are still hanging spirit banners and doing other things to feel like they are a part of the high school, Rozell said.

COVID-19 has turned many people’s plans upside down, but Rozell said it hasn’t stopped the campus from getting off to a great start.

“From day one, the atmosphere was inviting; the kids were excited to be there, and the teachers and staff were excited to be there,” Rozell said.

PIZITZ MIDDLE SCHOOL

When Pizitz Middle School moved to its new location on Columbiana Road, it brought decades’ worth of history with it. Second-year principal Pennington worked to ensure the stories and memories created at the old campus weren’t lost to history.

Pennington said one of his goals was to bring the “Pizitz legacy” into the new campus, and to improve the campus, formerly Berry High School, into a great space for its middle school students.

Phase two of that plan is underway, with work ongoing to improve what has come to be known as “The Pirates’ Cove,” an area in the center of the building that was originally designed for transitions between buildings but is used now as a student commons area. Pennington said three 72-inch monitors, audio/visual equipment and a speaker system will be installed to allow for performances and speakers in the area.

School leaders are still working to make improvements to athletic facilities, as well as getting stage lighting in place in auditoriums.

The campus is notably brighter, thanks to the new LED lighting, he said.

Moving from the old campus to the new campus, students and staff gained about 75,000 square feet, more than enough space for the roughly 1,200 students, Pennington said.

In the afternoons, Pennington said carpool has been easier than it was at the old campus. Each grade has its designated lane, and the campus is cleared out in an average of 12 to 14 minutes, he said.

Over the rest of the year, Pennington said his goals are to prepare for the full student population, which means doing some relationship building with staff and students.

Pennington also emphasized his commitment to diversity. He said he chose to focus on that as part of a self-assessment earlier this year, before police shootings and protests dominated headlines for months.

Pizitz leaders are creating the “Legacy Council,” which will be made up of students and will promote positive aspects of diversity.

Pennington’s other goal for the year is to determine the school’s strengths and weaknesses in learning, he said.

While he works toward those goals, Pennington said the vision of the campus he and other leaders set months ago is coming to fruition. “Everything we thought would work has worked.”