Though it’s been in use since school resumed Aug. 12, Gatewood Schools hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony last Friday night to officially open its new high school building.
Anchored by a large auditorium that doubles as a dedicated high-school lunchroom each school day, the new facility includes 13 classrooms, two of which are dedicated to science, a music room, and an arts facility.
Gatewood Head of School Jeff Decker said the high school's student-to-teacher ratio is “about 13-to-1, which is really good, just about perfect. It’s good for the kids and the teachers, and I know that the parents appreciate us keeping numbers down.”
“We do have a waiting list for, I think, five different grade levels across the entire school [which includes kindergarten to grade 12], right now,” Decker continued. “You hate to put people on a waiting list, but it is a healthy thing overall. So, I’m pleased with where we are. It’s the biggest the high school has been in 10 years, but again, we have so much more space for those kids than we had back then.”
Local businessman and lifelong Putnam County resident Tom Thompson was there “back then,” 54 years earlier, leading Gatewood’s founders when the school welcomed its first students.
“It’s very fulfilling to see what the track record has been, what the school has accomplished, where it’s going, and the leadership it has produced,” Thompson said. “I’m proud of knowing it has produced such good graduates who are doing something in life to enhance the state and the nation, as well as just here, locally.”
Thompson said the dedication ceremony represented the first time he’d returned to the school since participating in its groundbreaking ceremony last October.
He recalled meeting with parents in January 1970 and opening Gatewood that September. “But this was pretty quick, too,” he added with a laugh.
Gatewood board member, dad, and shotgun team coach Jacob Fried also spoke during a brief dedication ceremony inside the auditorium before about 50 attendees moved outside for the ribbon-cutting. With his wife, Janelle, Fried has a high school junior, an 8th grader, and a 3rd-grade student attending the school after their oldest child graduated.
Fried said discussions about building a dedicated high school began in 2019 among Gatewood’s board members.
“One thing led to another, and we really started to get some traction. We started thinking we might actually build this thing, and then COVID hit and slammed on the brakes,” he recalled. “But we could just pick right back up where we left off once the world opened back up.”
Based on input from Gatewood Schools board members, CNNA Architects in Atlanta was contracted to produce the original drawings and plans for the proposed high school. Eventually, after considering approximately 10 proposals and bids, SmithBuilt Construction out of Alpharetta was selected as the project’s builder.
“Rodney (Smith, owner and president), he just checked all the boxes for us. He used to be affiliated with Westfield School down in Perry, so he was familiar with small school struggles with finances and trying to do this with only just what you got in your pocket,” Fried said. “So, he turned in an extremely competitive bid. I don’t know if he made a nickel on the thing, but he did a great job. If you look at the original conceptual drawing, we about nailed it. If you stand out there with a picture and hold it up and look at the building now, it’s just about perfect.”
Thompson, the school’s founder, said he’s “amazed” by what Gatewood has accomplished and become over the years.
“We were rudimentary,” he acknowledged, saying he and his partners concentrated then on just trying to construct a building to house some students and put a teacher in front of them. “Now it’s got pretty much everything. A literary program, a musical program, a top-notch educational program, and sports, too. It’s an impressive facility, with even a four-time Olympic gold medal winner (Vincent Hancock, skeet shooting) coming from right here at Gatewood.
“To be honest, I was concerned that we might lose focus on the academics when we did the first sports thing, football. I said, ‘Let’s be careful. We don’t want to take our focus off academics because that’s what we are here for.' But in the long run, it’s enhanced it. Looking back now, I was probably a little bit more concerned than I should have been.”