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A set of long-awaited renovations at Gorham High School are complete and ready for the first day of school this week.

The cafeteria expansion, seven additional modular classrooms, new tennis courts and a new track and field area cost over $7 million. Voters approved the school district to borrow money for the projects in November 2024 and 2025.

The 12,322-square-foot expansion will help accommodate significant student population growth. The high school was last expanded in 1994 to handle 750 students, and now it’s at about 870 students with a projected increase to over 900 next year, said Superintendent Heather Perry.

“Not long ago, kids were sitting and eating lunch on the floor,” said Nicole Yeo-Fisher, Gorham School Committee chair. “You want (the students) to focus and pay attention and learn, and to not be able to eat at a table and converse with friends or have a place to hang out with during downtime, it’s just so hard.”

Six of the seven classrooms in the modular hall are the new homes of world language classes. Rising senior Lucas Lane said that crammed classrooms have posed challenges in his French class.

“Learning the language depends on a conversations and actually seeing one another,” Lane said at a ribbon cutting ceremony for the renovations in the new cafeteria on Tuesday.

Spanish teacher Leah Scontras got to work on setting up her new space after Tuesday’s celebration. In her old classroom, students didn’t have room to easily turn and participate in conversational activities with each other, she said. Now, there’s plenty.

Gorham High School Spanish teacher Leah Scontras sets up her new classroom before the first day of school this week. (Madeleine Kaptein/Staff Writer)

Scontras is also excited to have more storage and wall space to fill with posters of Spanish culture and vocabulary, and to share a hallway with colleagues in her department.

“We had a whole bin of just extra posters that people had that we were just kind of grabbing from,” she said.

The seventh new classroom will be used for the school’s Career Aspirations program and as a general community space, said Kelli Deveaux, Career Aspirations coordinator. The school will host guest speakers there instead of in the library.

Great Falls Construction completed the cafeteria and classroom expansion and Shaw Brothers Construction worked on the track and field replacement with Maine Tennis and Track, and on the tennis courts with Beaverbrook Tennis.

Town Councilor Janet Kuech thanked those who put work into the project at the ribbon cutting.

“I appreciate the continued use of the facilities that our son played tennis on, and where our daughter ran hurdles back more than 20 years ago,” Kuech said. “I trust that these projects are just the beginning of the Town Council, school committee and taxpayer commitment to collaborating and invest in maintaining the resources so important the future of our growing community.”

“I think you’ll enjoy the space when you’re able to fill it with some great memories before you leave us as seniors and move on,” Yeo-Fisher said to students.