September 7, 2005
GT Academy spreads its wings
Parents, students and staff celebrate school's new 30,000 square foot Secondary Wing addition
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Parents and students, teachers and staff celebrated the Grand Traverse Academy's new Secondary Wing last Tuesday evening at the school.
The 30,000 square foot addition includes classrooms, an earth science lab, a chemistry lab, a 53-seat lecture hall and a multi-purpose room plus a band room and a vocal music room. The school's 100 junior high students and 100 high school students will use these facilities.
Students and their parents got an advanced look at the new facility during an Open House for grades 7-11, reveling in the new space.
"This is awesome, to have their own band room, too," said Amy Koronka of Williamsburg.
Attending the event with her husband, Doug, and children Heather, tenth grade, and Ethan, ninth grade, the Koronka family has been at the school since it opened six years ago.
"We'd been bringing them every day early for two years for band," said Amy, thrilled that the new band rooms changes band to a formal curriculum offering instead of an extracurricular activity.
Michelle Floering, a music teacher at the school, called the new wing a dream come true.
"The kids get bigger and the space gets bigger," said Floering, who has been teaching at the Grand Traverse Academy for three years. "When I started here, band was every other day before school. starting at 7:30; finally this year, band will be during school."
Floering said more than 130 students in grades 5-11 are signed up for band so far, requiring four classes to meet the demand.
"Now the kids don't have to store the instruments under their desks," she said as her room includes an instrument storage area.
The Secondary Wing brings the school's total size to 84,000 square feet, accommodating 810 students in K-11th grades as well as 75 preschool students. The school has added one grade a year since it opened in 1999 and by next year will have full K-12 offerings. Approximately half of the current secondary level students have been with the school since it began.
After a ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday and an energetic drum flourish played by two students, attendees wandered through the large hallways filled with natural light from skylights. Students found their homerooms and picked up their schedules while many returning this fall greeted old friends and teachers.
With steady enrollment growth since it opened, the school began planning the new wing two years ago and broke ground last fall. All year, students watched the progress through windows or from the playground as the building went up.
During the ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday evening, school administrators acknowledged the project management by Comstock Construction and the support of the Traverse City State Bank. The two companies helped to make the school's vision a reality. Allyson Apsey, assistant principal at the school, announced that the new lecture hall would be named the Comstock Lecture Hall in honor of the company's contributions, which date back to the school's founding.
Apsey also thanked the school's parents and students before recognizing the contributions of school founder Kaye Mentley.
"Thank you not only for you capacity to dream this but the ability to make it come true as well," she said.
Reflecting on the new wing, Apsey added: "I taught many of our 11th graders as sixth, seventh and eighth graders and it is thrilling to see them 'grow up,'" she said. "Now our building has grown up with them - they are thrilled to have a space that feels like a secondary school."