Parents, administrators are getting active as Cupertino's new middle school takes shape.

Gotta love that new school smell. The pungent but thrilling odor of drying paint, new carpeting and freshly cured concrete awaits the hundreds of kids who will be swarming through Sam Lawson Middle School on Aug. 25, opening day for Cupertino Union School District's newest campus.

In contrast to the angst in places like San Jose and Oakland over school closings and consolidations, Cupertino Union is happily immersed in the task of completing a $27 million campus for students in grades 6-8 next door to district headquarters on Vista Drive.

Even though buildings under construction are still connected by uneven dirt paths instead of smooth concrete, and some indoor walls are patchworks of flat gray drywall stitched together with nails and spackle, the outline of the campus is clear.

"I've seen parents slowly drive by the school to show their kids how things are coming along," said principal CiCi O'Donnell, her enthusiasm and energy unending even as she launches Lawson while simultaneously serving out a five-year stint as principal of Eaton Elementary.

It's not that rough patches have not accompanied the planning and execution of the campus, including the struggle to settle on attendance boundaries carved out of the territory previously held by four other middle schools. Lawson is needed, official say, to help the district adapt to the shifting demographics - an anticipated increase in middle-schools rather than Las Vegas-style booming population growth.

Running on a parallel track to the cement mixers and paint sprayers is the construction of a campus community. With teachers already lined up and students and parents meeting to decide on things like a school mascot, There's a feeling that everything's coming together, a sense of it really happening," O'Donnell said.

S.J. Mercury News