Being an eighth-grader has its advantages.

Eighth-graders know the best lockers, the fastest way through the lunch line and where to go when they don't want to be seen.

Except this year the eighth-graders in Mandan have some obsolete information. Now, they're almost on par with the seventh-graders, except they know which teachers they like.

The reason is a new middle school was built, and it opens for school this week.

"It seems bigger," eighth-grader Shaylee Schaf said.

The new school is bigger. It is a 110,000-square-foot building on 30 acres north of Old Red Trail and east of Sunset Drive.

The building is comprised of four areas: the common areas of the office, gym, library and cafeteria, which doubles as an auditorium; the specialty areas of counseling, technical education, family and consumer science and special education; fine arts area of band, choir and art; and the classroom wing with the classrooms for science, math, language arts and social studies. This area also has some special education classrooms, study skill classrooms and a computer lab.

Some of the students who attended a recent open house are excited about the size and layout of the school.

"It's nice without the stairs,"Kati Kruckenberg said.

The old two-story school, which is now Great Plains Sixth Grade Academy, required students to use stairs to get from classes on the first or second floor.

"You had to go all over the school," said eighth grader Ashton Horn.

In the new school most of the classrooms are in one section of the building. The science classrooms are in the middle with a ring of classrooms on the outside wall. One side is for the eighth-grade teams and the other side is for the seventh-grade teams. Each team occupies a corner, has its own common area and lockers.

Almost all the classrooms have smartboards, called Promethean boards. A few science and math classes had the boards at the older building.

"This is second nature to them," Mandan Middle School Principal Harlan Haak said. "The device is like a cell phone."

With the interactive white boards, teachers can put a question on the board and students use a control to answer the question. Teachers can instantly see how well the students grasp what is taught. They can group answers to display in class and then see how students answered individually, Haak said.

"They're a lot easier to understand," said Bekah Peterson, Ashton's friend.

The school opened to the public for an evening dedication Tuesday. About 500 people attended. School officials gave guided tours, and people could walk through the school on their own.

"It's exciting for the community," said Lynette Horn, Ashton's mother.

She's excited about the technology in the school that her daughter will use, and Horn said she likes that the rooms have amplification in the classrooms for when her younger daughter will be a student there.

The amplification is done with speakers in the corner and the teacher wearing a microphone. It makes the teacher's voice sound the same at the front of the room and the back of the room.

"It'll be hard to ignore" the teacher, Shaylee said.

Being able to hear the teacher should help with getting good grades, Kati said. That's the hope of school officials. They also hope it will save teachers' voices.

"We believe it's going to save the teacher's voice," Haak said. "They have to turn their voices up if they want 25 kids to pay attention."

There are less visible technology upgrades in the buildings, as well. An electronic key system will let teachers through the locked doors, computers let staff monitor security remotely and the heating and cooling is controlled through computers.

The building took two years to complete after ground breaking in August 2006. The project was estimated at $14.3 million, but bids came in at $15.1 million.

The district spent about $15.2 million for the project.. The difference was paid for with interest on the $17.6 million bond passed in April 2005.

The bond paid for the middle school construction, the renovation of Faris Field and the window replacement and air conditioning project at Mandan High School. It also paid for the renovation of the old junior high into the Great Plains Sixth Grade Academy and it will pay to finish renovating the junior high into administrative offices once an addition is built onto the middle school. The middle school addition will not be paid from bond money.

Faris Field came in $80,448 over budget, at $880,448, and the high school project came in $19,541 over budget, at $1,819,541. The additional costs were paid from the bond money. The district also took out a $2.5 million school construction loan for the middle school project, which is paid out of the sinking and interest fund.

All-day, every-day kindergarten created the need for more space in the elementary schools. The district decided to use the first floor of the junior high for the district's sixth-graders. The students will be there until fall 2010, when they move to the middle school.

The renovation at the junior high is complete and teachers will be moving into their rooms, business manager Joe Lukach said.

At the time the bond passed, it was expected to increase the district's mill levy by 25.65 mills, or another $173 for a $150,000 home. The district, however, can only levy what is needed to pay off the bond payment, which causes the mill levy for the bond to change.

It will levy about 10 to 12 mills to pay for the bond, depending on the valuation of property in the district, business manger Joe Lukach said. The bond issue is paid out of the district's sinking and interest fund, which is at 21.67 mills. The payment on the bond will increase in 2012 when the district starts paying the principal. Other bond issues, like Ft. Lincoln, will be paid off before this happens.

Other mill levies for the district include the general fund at 185 mills, the technology fund at 5 mills, the building fund at 16.5 mills, special assessments at 6.71 mills and asbestos bonding at 1 mill. The total mill levy for the school district is 234.65 mills, or about $1,583 on a $150,000 house.

The school district is only one of several taxing entities that make up a property tax bill.

(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@bismarcktribune.com.)