WESTMORELAND — The eagerly anticipated expansion of the 25 year-old Maud McLeod High School in Westmoreland was recently completed at a cost of $30 million.

After years of operating on two shifts, it was a dream come true for school administrators, as the expansion means they can now have a one-shift system at the institution.

Principal Heather Murray said the school, which was built to accommodate 350 students from grades seven to nine, had grown to 1,300 students who were spread out from grades seven to 11. The result, she said, was that prior to the expansion they were forced to adopt a double shift system to accommodate the numbers, even as they ran the risk of sacrificing the quality of education offered to students.

“The advantage of the double shift is that we can accommodate more students. but for too long we have given up quality for quantity and we should go into the new century thinking about the quality of students we produce and not just the quantity,” she said.

The school now has a pair of new two-storey buildings which consist of:

* six classrooms and a science lab;

* a computer lab and a home economics center;

* a technical drawing room and a sick bay;

* a guidance and counselling office; and

* bathroom facilities for staff and students.

Murray was obviously pleased that the building had been ready for the start of this year’s school term, which began earlier this month.

“We did not know that we would meet the September deadline… but we are excited that we were able to start school on the first of September in our new buildings,” the principal said.

“This expansion means that we’ll have facilities for both junior and senior students, especially in science and home economics,” she added.

She also explained that under the one-shift system, students would be in school longer, together as a group, and this augured well for extra-curricular activities.

“A single shift will definitely benefit extra-curricular activities, which are now lacking at Maud McLeod,” she said.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the contractors told the Observer that the expansion could have been completed over a six-month period but the project was hampered by the afternoon rains experienced in Darliston over the last year. The afternoon rains usually meant work stopped at about 1:00 pm, forcing labourers to begin working very early each morning to make up the hours.