Cumberland County officials are thrilled about the opening of the county's long-desired and much-anticipated $32.9 million high school and middle school complex.

The two-story, 171,500squarefoot school features Cumberland High School and Cumberland Middle School under the same roof but in separate wings. The school opened Tuesday with about 870 students but can accommodate 1,250.

"It's a big deal," Wendy Lyle-Jones, principal of the high school, said as she led a recent tour. "We have gone leaps and bounds with what we are doing in Cumberland County. It's a new day in Cumberland County."

Supporters say it is a long time coming.

The county will pay the debt service on the school with money generated by a landfill planned for Cumberland. Some leaders say they would not have been able to build the school without landing the landfill.

"It would have been impossible," said William Osl, chairman of the county's Board of Supervisors. "We would have had to have a 50 percent-plus property-tax increase to pay the debt service. Remember, that would be on a community with a $15,000 per-capita income and 15 percent of its people below the poverty level."

At the high school, which houses students in the ninth through 12th grades, enrollment is about 530 students -- an increase from the 482 students at the school last year, Lyle-Jones said. She doesn't know whether the growth can be attributed to the new school or population growth, but "it seems like the timing is perfect."

Though some work remains to be done to the building, system and county officials are boasting that the school is essentially finished four months ahead of schedule.

Gone is the open school and its security concerns, where some students had to go outside in bad weather to change classes. Gone, too, is the high school where one of the buildings was condemned because of damage from a fire years before. And where, Osl said, until just a few years ago, an old log cabin was used as a classroom.

Now, with everyone under one roof, "we just have better access to the students, more control of movement," Lyle-Jones said. "It's inside. It's well-lit. [The students] can move about a little better."

Lockers line the spacious hallways and replace a designated locker area the students dreaded using. "A lot of times kids didn't want to go down there because it was crowded," said Michelle Bell, the system's assistant superintendent for human resources. "[Now] we've got plenty of them. They could probably have two apiece if they wanted them."

The system has long put an emphasis on technology and provides laptop computers for all high school students, and the high school has several computer labs.

The school also includes a fitness center with treadmills and exercise bikes. Students will use the facility, and some of the teachers are thinking about a weight-loss competition, Lyle-Jones said. The fitness center is also open to the public.

In addition, there is a satellite library where students can "sit back, do some reading, do some studying," Lyle-Jones said.

"The kids are excited," she said.

"I told them I was going to get them a Starbucks, but it didn't work out," she joked.
Contact Jamie C. Ruff at (434) 392-6605 or jruff@timesdispatch.com.