DANVERS — For seniors Tanner Henry, Ryan Gibbons, Samantha Butterfield and Johanni Manon, their first day of school in the massive Dunn Wing at Danvers High yesterday was also a homecoming of sorts.
Besides being a temporary high school for the next two years during construction, it is also the place where many seniors spent sixth grade in what was then Dunn Middle School. Dunn Middle School closed in 2005, and the middle school shifted to the newly renovated Holten Richmond Middle School on Conant Street.
"It's definitely a nostalgic feeling," said Henry, 17. "Personally, when I was in the sixth grade, I didn't go further than the second floor, so I got to see a lot more of the building."
Danvers High is in the Dunn Wing while the nearly $80 million school renovation project is under way, with much of the school off-limits behind construction fences.
Students said they found a clean, brightly lit building with air conditioning, something they did not have as sixth-graders.
"We came back for the tour, and it was completely unrecognizable from what it was," said Gibbons, 17.
"We have gotten lots of positive feedback," said Superintendent Lisa Dana, who also experienced a twinge of nostalgia for the wing where her office is located. She used to teach in room 211, she said.
"We just brought it back to being a school," Dana said.
"I didn't think we would fit in the cafeteria for lunches, but the lunches were really great," said Manon, who is 16.
Yesterday's Dunn Wing homecoming was not only confined to seniors and some present school administrators.
The school's newly hired assistant principal, Scott Kelley, served as assistant principal in Dunn Middle School before leaving in 2004. Kelley is now sharing duties with the high school's other assistant principal, Mark Strout.
Kelley worked in the Danvers school system from 1993 to 2004 before leaving to become dean of residential life at Eagle Hill School, a private prep school in Hardwick. Kelley did not have any of the present seniors as middle-schoolers, however.
"For them, it is a trip back to the old Dunn Middle School as it is for me," Kelley said. "So, I'm kind of sharing that experience with them."
Staff writer Ethan Forman can be reached at 978-338-2673 or eforman@salemnews.com.
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