Crews have been moving furniture into the classrooms of the new Moorhead High School, according to the district’s director of operations Steve Moore. (Photos/Nancy Hanson.)

The Commons will be the heart of the new high school. When Phase II construction is eventually complete in 2025-2026, the new entrance will open into this area.

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

At Moorhead High School, life goes on. Classrooms hum. Waves of teen-agers thunder through the halls. Theater students take a break after the close of “Legally Blonde,” and athletes polish their skills for the season ahead.
Normal, yes … just like every other late autumn day since 1968. But that won’t last much longer.
Just seven feet to the north, the scene is anything but normal. After 30 months of hard labor, the troupe of construction crews and tradesmen that have been building the next generation of Moorhead High is well into the final stretch of the largest construction project in local history. The first results of years of planning, tens of millions of dollars, perhaps a thousand workers and the dreams of a community are on the verge of being unveiled.
The whole community gets its first glimpse of what’s inside the next high school on Dec. 17. Afterwards, the young Spuds will spend their last three days in the old school; perhaps their teachers will elect to tour them through the new landscape to get their bearings. They’ll wind up their week with an e-learning day on Dec. 21, giving teachers a chance to finish packing their books and classroom materials for the big move.
In just two weeks, they’ll return to a different world.
Steve Moore is the maestro who’s conducting the massive effort to smoothly move the whole high school from Point A to Point B in the middle of the school year. In reality, a good share of the preparations are already in place, or already there. Much of the $22 million worth of new desks and furnishings – 20 truckloads – purchased for the new facility has already been transferred from storage and deposited in classrooms large and small, offices and meeting areas.
But so much remains to be transferred after Christmas. Moore, the district’s executive director of operations, says that Apartment Movers has been hired to bring staff to shuttle the vast amount of books, classroom materials, lab equipment, kitchen gear and all the rest that keeps the operation running. They’ll be on site from Dec. 26 through 30.
“At least we won’t be loading trucks like we did the last time,” Moore observes. Two years ago, the same company helped the district move its equipment-laden vocational programs from the current high school to the Career Academy, an assignment just as enormous – but one accomplished before school began, rather than over a two-week mid-year break.
The 2024 version of Moorhead High bears little resemblance to the old structure to be left behind. Moore estimates the three wings that spread north of the commons area, plus the areas that overlook it, include some 165 classrooms. That includes both large teaching area and a variety of smaller spaces for collaboration, including break-out areas and smaller “huddle spaces.”
They occupy the three wings that Moorheaders have watched rise to the north of the old school. Each has been dubbed a “neighborhood,” a complex of learning and gathering spaces designed to make the very large school feel smaller and more personal to the students who’ll be spending their lives there. The westernmost two-story wing was christened River. The middle and eastern wings, both three stories, are Forest and Prairie. Each has its own commons area and media room (what was formerly known as a library). Special education occupies the first floors of Forest and Prairie.
The heart of the facility is the Commons. All three wings are connected to it. It will welcome students and visitors alike when the new south-facing entrance is completed as part of Phase II. In the meantime, it offers a vast area for meeting, studying, keeping up with friends and eating. Science classrooms and labs overlook the lofty space/ the main media center occupies part of the first floor, along with the food service.
To the east, finishing touches are being applies in the so-called Spud Neighborhood. It includes a competition-size gymnasium with seating for 3,000, as well as a tournament-worthy swimming pool. The weight room, where athletes have already begun to train, rounds out the neighborhood.
As gargantuan as the move to the new spaces will be, Moore points out that it’s not the final act – not even close. As soon as the present school has switched spaces, work commences once again – this time on demolition of the entire facility that students and teachers will have left behind.
Phase II of the project – about 30% of the entire plan – won’t be complete until well into the 2025-2026 school year. It involves, first, clearing the site of the soon-to-be-abandoned school, and then constructing its replacement. In the end, only the fieldhouse and sports center will remain of the landmark building from which 55 classes of Spuds have graduated. The structure that will take its place will include the Arts Neighborhood – music, art, theater and the performing arts center – and administrative offices. Until it’s complete, those programs will occupy temporary quarters in the Phase I section.
Moore says the decommissioning of the old building begins Jan. 4. “We expect it will take about six weeks,” he predicts. The first step: asbestos abatement. Then the boilers that heat the building must be turned off and allowed to cool. The HVAC and fire suppression systems and waterlines will be removed, along with mercury-containing ballasts in the fluorescent lighting. Eventually the walls will be reduced to rubble – a more delicate assignment than one might expect, given the proud new structure that stands just seven feet away from the north wall.
The biggest challenge over the coming month, Moore acknowledges, is time. “We need to get the last of the construction done. We need to get all the furniture delivered and installed. We need to move all those boxes from the old to the new and get them in the right spots.” Some tweaking will certainly remain when the Spuds return to class on Jan. 4. For the most part, though, one of the biggest moves in the school district’s 150 years will be history.