For some Norwood Public School teachers living the life of a nomad wandering the halls looking for an empty classroom was part of the job.
"We used to have teachers walking around the school using carts looking for rooms as they became available," Chief School Administrator Andrew Rose said.
But that has changed.
Those wandering teachers pulling their carts from room to room now have a classroom to call their own.
The public school district’s $5.1 million new addition project was completed giving students and faculty the extra needed space.
Education officials added eight new classrooms to the school as well as reconfiguring the older building to create more instructional space. The official opening was Saturday, March 8, but teachers and students have been using the new space for a few weeks, Rose said.
"The faculty is very happy with the improvements," Rose said.
Work began in September 2006 and was completed about one year later.
While the plan’s primary focus was adding the addition, improvements extend beyond the classroom.
Students have a new lunchroom and the borough’s library is allotted space in the building, a move that prevented doing a similar expansion project to the library.
There won’t be a new Multi-Purpose Room, but it is being renovated, Rose said.
District officials are also planning to make improvements to the older portion of the building to try and keep it on par with the new part.
That, though, won’t be a referendum-type project. Rose said the school board plans to use money from the budget, current and future, to make upgrades whenever financially possible.
"The original building looks old and the school board is committed to improving it over the years," he said.
"The whole project was a very progressive move and it took good leadership in terms of looking at the community as a whole," Rose said, adding that it was former Mayor Michael Kaplan, who approached the district about combing certain resources to save taxpayers the cost of multiple large-scale expansion projects.
The end result has brought about a new positive attitude.
"The children just love the new addition," he said. "They make every excuse they can to walk through it."
