CLEVELAND, Tenn. – Walker Valley High School begins its 10th academic year in August.
In the beginning, some critics said the 1,200-student school in northern Bradley County was far too big.
This year’s enrollment is about 300 above that.
Like many older schools in the area, Walker Valley compensates by creating extra capacity within its existing walls, principal Danny Coggin said.
“We have 17 teachers who float from classroom to classroom. They have carts and move from room to room because there is not enough space. We have used five of our original eight computer labs as classrooms,” Mr. Coggin said.
Now, with Wacker Chemical planning to build a plant in Charleston that will employ around 600 people, Mr. Coggin said he expects growth to continue.
And the school was designed to grow, too.
The core capacity – infrastructure and services such as gyms, kitchen and the media center – is built for 1,800. The academic wings were built to expand outward as needed. Services such as electrical wiring already are built into the ends of the wings, ready to “move out,” Mr. Coggin said.
“When we built Walker Valley some folks wondered if we would ever have enough students to fill it up,” said County Schools Director Johnny McDaniel.
“Not only did we fill it up, we commandeered some of the rooms that should have been used for clubs, stores and that sort of things,” he said.
“Like Park View Elementary now, Walker Valley was designed to expand,” Mr. McDaniel said.