OWINGS — Calvert County’s newest school building is occupied. Staff moved into the replacement Northern Middle School on Chaneyville Road during the week of Nov. 2, about 22 months after the January 2025 groundbreaking, and families got their first look inside at an open house on Nov. 4.
“It takes every department in the school system,” Superintendent Marcus Newsome told the Board of Education on Nov. 5, showing video he shot in the building days earlier. Crews moved boxes for several days “with a smile on their face,” he said, “except the ones that had to go to the second and third floor when the elevator wasn’t working.”
The move closes the construction chapter of a project the school system has pursued since a stakeholder committee recommended replacing, rather than renovating, the nearly 50-year-old school. The three-story, 109,237-square-foot building was designed for a state-rated capacity of 796 students and is being certified through Green Globes, making it the county’s third green school building. It was designed by Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates and built by Keller CM on the parking lot north of the existing school.
Set up in days
Newsome’s photos traced the site from bare ground through a half-built gymnasium to finished classrooms, a cafeteria and conference rooms, something he said the old building had little of. The new school has floor-to-ceiling windows; Newsome said the glass is bulletproof and the windows can be secured as a safety measure.
Northern High School honor society students crossed the shared campus to help teachers unpack classrooms. The art room went from boxes to ready in two days. Librarians from six Calvert schools set up the media center; Newsome said he saw boxes on Tuesday and full shelves by the next day.
At the Nov. 4 family open house, eighth-grade student ambassadors led the tours. “There was such an excitement in the air,” one board member said, and another who helped teachers move in called the building “beautiful.” Student board member Ollie, who presented to Northern Middle’s student government earlier this fall, said the building “is looking amazing.”
Newsome did not announce the first day of classes in the new building. The system has said the old school will stay in use until students move, and that it then has roughly three and a half weeks to clear out what can be repurposed before the demolition phase.
Goodbye to the old building
Northern Middle opened in the 1970s on the same campus as Northern High, which was itself replaced in 2019. Under the project plan, the old middle school will be demolished once students are out, and its footprint will become parking and vehicle drop-off and pickup loops; that final phase is expected to run into spring 2027, according to the project architect.
The school system held a farewell walk through the old building on Nov. 8 for former students and anyone who wanted to see it before it comes down.
The Northern Middle replacement sat atop the school system’s capital improvement requests to the state for fiscal 2027, with construction funded through a mix of state Public School Construction Program dollars and county general obligation bonds. The school system’s next large project, a combined Calvert Elementary and Calvert Middle in Prince Frederick, is awaiting state planning approval.
Newsome used the same report to recite the system’s recent rankings, including five five-star schools on the state report card and an A-minus from Niche, and to invite the public to the building. “I hope you can get over to see it soon,” he said.
