After serving the community for an entire century, Chesterton Middle School has finally shut its doors due to irrevocable decay. Built in the 1920s as Chesterton High School and turned into a middle school in 2001 after the construction of the current high school, the building has eroded under the wear of a hundred years’ worth of students. When the last eighth graders to ever finish their middle school journey at CMS left on May 30, 2024, the school was shut to students for good. Summer ‘24 was an endless one for the school on Morgan Avenue, but not for its former students. The Classes of 2029 and 2030 started seventh and eighth grade at one of the new Duneland middle schools, either Liberty Middle or Westchester Middle, in new buildings connected to the schools from which they had completed intermediate school. Students completing elementary school at either Liberty or Jackson Elementary students will be attending middle school at the original Liberty location, while Brummit, Bailey, and Yost kids will return to the original Westchester location.
The rumors of splitting the town’s middle school began in early 2022, convincing the community that by the fall of 2023, construction on WMS and LMS would be finished, but that was not the case. Finally, it was confirmed that in the fall of 2024, the new middle schools would be open for students. The classes of 2029 and 2030 became designated guinea pigs for this new concept on their first day of school, earlier this month. Lauren Seiss, former assistant principal at what was CMS, is running things as the principal of Westchester Middle, and Mike Hamacher, former principal of CMS, is once again in charge as the principal of Liberty Middle. Like the rest of the district, these new schools start and end an hour later, with the merciful intent of fixing the sleep schedules of Chesterton teenagers. Both middle schools now begin at 8:50 a.m. and go through 3:50 p.m. Across the school district, the new start times have been a sort of controversy, but overall it is agreed that the new times and bus schedules are much healthier and more efficient than that of the years prior.
As for the old middle school building, it is in the first phase of becoming the new YMCA Healthy Living Campus of Chesterton. Like the middle school, the old YMCA has fallen into disrepair, and a fresh start is in order. Although CMS was shut down at the end of May, labor on this project did not begin until July 1st, and it is still in the first phase of reconstruction: the innards. When that is done, most of the school will be demolished, and the rest will be Cleveland-Cliffs Community Park, a twenty acre YMCA Healthy Living Campus in the heart of Chesterton, and of course the Duneland Schools Administration building. Major demolition on this project will start September 10th, and on that day at 10 a.m. there will be a groundbreaking ceremony. Anyone in the community is welcome to RSVP to [email protected], and all citizens living near the project will be notified before the prime construction begins.
Although it is a building with much history, most citizens of Chesterton agree that it is high time for Chesterton Middle School to reinvent itself, and that the two new middle schools are what is best for the students.
“I definitely feel like it was for the best,” says freshman Annalise Lewis, a recent graduate from the late Chesterton Middle School. “I feel bad for the kids who had to go back to their intermediate school and away from their friends, but the middle school was definitely, like, a biohazard. There were pipes taped up, there were holes in the ceiling. It was definitely for the better.”
Opinions such as Lewis’ win over the minds of a good handful of Chesterton citizens, those most concerned with the safety and efficiency of the schools in their community. However, not all aspects of the project are free of disapproval, or, more accurately, disappointment.
“I really don’t like the school switch,” says Eleanor Dado, an eighth grade student at the new Liberty Middle School. “It annoyed me because I made friends at that school. They were mostly WIS kids, so after last year we obviously got separated. I just think they could’ve thought about the kids more, you know? Like, I miss the people who go to the other school and I feel like I grew apart from them. Also, Liberty looks all the same.”
The unfortunate truth of the matter is that many Chesterton eighth graders find themselves in the same situation as Dado. Merging the class of 2029 from LIS and WIS for just a year, only now separating them again, could be construed as a cruel tease. The benefit of having one big middle school was a bigger pool of friends for students to choose from, and more opportunities to evade peers one might need to get away from. There was never going to be a perfect time for such a major switch that would keep all students happy, but it was a necessary move nonetheless. Thankfully, Liberty and Westchester kids will once again be united in high school.
With the YMCA assuming responsibility of this fixer upper and remaking it to better the lives of our community, and with the middle schoolers learning in a much safer, cleaner, and improved environment, it is clear that saying goodbye to Chesterton Middle School was the best and, frankly, the only decision to make on behalf of the school on Morgan Avenue. It was sad to see Chesterton Middle School dissipate, but it would be even more treacherous to watch such a historic building fall into an even worse state of disrepair with students inside. Chesterton is truly fortunate to be able to undergo projects such as this one for the betterment of the community. Hopefully Westchester Middle School and Liberty Middle School will build reputations as respectable as all of the other Chesterton schools.
