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Schools

After a Decade, Walter Johnson High School Is Finally Construction-Free

Students, staff rave about modernized building.

It's a project that's seen one decade and thousands of students.

But this year, the renovation of Bethesda's Walter Johnson High School is finally complete, and students and staff are able to enjoy the amenities of the new building.

The longest school renovation in Montgomery County, the project to modernize Walter Johnson High School has taken about a decade to complete, according to Bruce Crispell, the school system's director of long-range planning. The school was originally constructed in the late 1950s, and it was in desperate need of maintenance and remodeling, Principal Christopher Garran said.

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"We had major leaks in the ceiling. If we were doing a musical, you never knew who was going to be wet or dry," said Garran, who has been the principal of the school for the past seven years and took the helm of the school when the construction project was still underway.

One of the peculiarities of project was that the entire construction was done without relocating students and teachers.

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"It is not the type of thing that you necessarily want to do: having a massive construction taking place on a campus while you are teaching and learning," Garran said. "But everybody wanted the new facilities, and this community was committed to staying on campus during the modernization."

But it was not always easy.

Patricia Richards, a resource teacher and science department chair, has witnessed the project from its start. She vividly remembers what a challenge it was to teach science in portable classrooms.

"You can't do science labs in portable classrooms, so we stayed in the building for that," Richards said. While Richards taught science classes in the portables, she said the labs continued on inside the building. "I'm a firm believer in hands-on lab activities, and it was really hard to do that. I had to carry water in buckets so the kids could use it for their experiments."

Those days seem far behind as Richards walked down the hall of the science department and proudly showed off the remodeled science classrooms.

"I taught in this very room 17 years ago — same positioning of the doors, but the front of the class room was at that end," pointing toward the end of the 32-foot-long room. "It was like a bowling alley."

Richards said it was hard to teach a student who was on the other end of the classroom. However, the architects who redesigned the school were receptive of teachers' input and made it possible to have much more convenient and modern classrooms, she said.

Openness and light is a theme throughout the halls of the new facility, which preserves the bones of the old structure. It now has an internal courtyard surrounded by classroom buildings that can be used by anyone who wants to enjoy the freshness of autumn. It has a glass ceiling at the entrance decorated with more than 90 flags representing all the nationalities of the students who attend the school. A new stadium and a new auditorium are among many of the updated amenities.

"I love it," said Richards of the 17 science labs. Four of them are new additions to the department. 

Without a doubt, teachers and students are thrilled to have the construction project finally come to an end.

Nevertheless, there was something unique about those years that brought this resilient group of students, staff members and teachers together, said Lynne Grogg, the administrative assistant to the principal.

"Every year, you would find something new," said Michael New, a senior and president of the Student Government Association. "One year, we didn't have a sports stadium, and the next we had a brand new one."

For years, the school could not host its own home games. New said when they finally could host a game last year, the day was marked by joy and happiness.

"Everybody came out to celebrate. It was a big deal," he said.

"There is nothing else we could ask for."

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