Read John Barry's story: The old Gibbs was a dump, a 1928 asbestos-ridden relic. The principal and janitor shared a room. Biology students shared a frog. Everyone remembers old Gibbs as a shrine.
The new Gibbs cost $58-million, the most expensive school ever built in Pinellas County. It has everything. It has 2,300 students. Four in 10 are poor. Four in 10 won't graduate. An anonymous letter went to the superintendent on Dec. 15. The authors claimed to be "very disgusted teachers."
They wrote: "Here is a list of some of the outrageous things going on: Students defecating on the floors and in the sinks in the bathroom. Students having such terrible fights everywhere that their food was taken away. Students setting aerosol cans on fire. . . . Every other word is f---, s---."
Gibbs made the front pages.
Somewhere in this lies the shrine. Old bricks come down, new bricks go up, but Gibbs remains Gibbs. It's still all the kids have, their only hope. Everybody from the old and the new Gibbs knows that.
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