SALISBURY — The former Knox Middle School campus was the subject of multiple discussions at the Rowan-Salisbury Schools Board of Education meeting on Monday.

In addition to a construction update from RSS Chief Operations Officer Dr. Jamie Durant, the board also approved a name for the new building and settled on a mascot. The work taking place now is becoming increasingly visible for passersby as Durant noted.

“The past few weeks, the work has been ongoing,” Durant said.

That completed work includes steel erection on the first half of the main building, second floor steel decking installed for the first half of the building, three-quarters of the main building slab on grade and main building underground electrical and plumbing as well as two block stair towers (2 and 4).

Durant indicated that main building block walls are underway, and a sanitary sewer install is in progress.

RSS Superintendent Dr. Kelly Withers said, “Now you can literally drive by. It’s visible at this point. It’s not just planning and it’s daily that it changes.”

What to expect over the next month

Durant said that during the next thirty days, the construction will take on even greater visibility.

“We can expect steel erection on the second building,” Durant said.

Additionally, the construction team will start to block stairwells in towers 1 and 3, complete the main building slab and the gym building slab. They will also begin metal stud framing on the main building, complete the sanitary-sewer system installation and water tie-in and begin the gym masonry walls.

With the building construction progressing, Durant said they have a ceremonial opportunity for community stakeholders to literally leave their mark on the building.

“On April 11, we are doing our topping out ceremony,” Durant said. “That will be one of the last steel beams that will be placed on the structure. We will ask the students at Overton, the board and city members and commissioners to come and sign that beam that will be placed on the building as the last piece that will be set for the steel structure.”

Durant mentioned some other upcoming dates with a meeting on April 4 to begin the selection process for such internal components as furniture and technology. He also mentioned a tour of the facilities for elected officials.

“We are going to open it up to our board and our (county) commissioners to be able to do a construction site visit,” he said.

Although passersby can observe the construction coming along, the site is not currently open to the public.

“I don’t want people on the site and I don’t think they want people on the site for safety reasons if for nothing else,” Withers said. “But on an evening drive by, you can see the progress every single day.”

School board member Sabrina Harris added, “I am grateful and thankful … I am learning a lot in this process not just in the community part of it but in actually looking at the materials and understanding what that means. It’s kind of hard not to get excited when you are able to physically touch things being brought in. I am really excited to actually see the culmination of it come together and for everybody involved in this project.”

Durant offered several images on Monday of the construction progress, which School board member Dr. Rebecca Childs commended and called helpful.

“Thank you so much for adding that update,” she said. “I think the visuals really helped tell the story.”

New name, same mascot

“We have a new name for our school.”

Rowan-Salisbury School Board Chair Kathy McDuffie Sanborn remarked those words on Monday in reference to the former Knox Middle School, after the board approved a new name and mascot.

The Salisbury-based school, which will no longer just be a middle school but serve students from 3rd grade through 8th grade, will be known as the J.H. Knox Intermediate School moving forward. The school will retain Trojan as its mascot.

Those developments were recommended by Withers during the Monday meeting. Withers explained that the recommendation to call the new school J.H. Knox Intermediate School came after soliciting community shareholder input regarding the new school. A similar process was conducted to determine a popular consensus for the mascot. Retaining the Trojan mascot offered a chance for the school to hold onto a piece of its former years. Meanwhile, the new name reflected the modified grade offerings as a new 3-8 school while tying into the legacy left behind by Knox, a former Salisbury City Schools superintendent.

A full story on the name change process appeared in the Friday electronic edition of the Salisbury Post.