LITTLE ROCK—Arkansas is in the midst of a public school building boom, set off by an Arkansas Supreme Court ruling years ago that the state education system was inadequate.

In three years, 14 new campuses have opened across the state, and classroom wings and buildings have been added in many districts.

“The state is really turning the corner with these schools,” says Doug Eaton, director of the Arkansas Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation Division. “Over the next couple of years as we finish .... it’s going to make it a lot easier for superintendents to provide an adequate education.”

Most of Arkansas’ 245 school districts open for the school year Monday. And in Shirley, English teacher Peggy Cottey and her students will walk into a new high school.

Cottey says her classroom is shiny and well-equipped, with far more than the two electrical outlets she had in her old classroom.

The 34,000-square-foot school cost about $3.3 million, and will serve about 240 students in grades seven through 12. It has two computer laboratories, a distance-learning room and a science laboratory. A large rotunda-like space gives students a place to eat lunch, visit and watch television. It also has an outdoor pavilion.

Students who have been through to peek at the new school were amazed, Cottey says.

The statewide school-building program has three categories: immediate repairs to deal with safety issues; transitional work to take on new construction, and a partnership program for ongoing improvements. State and local districts share building costs.

Eaton says immediate repairs were completed as of December 2006, involving about $35 million in state funds. Many of the transitional projects have been done, he says. State funding in that category amounts to about $86 million.

The partnership program has begun and is ongoing. The state currently has about $638 million in that program.

The new buildings must comply with new state standards that address the adequacy issue. As a result, the new schools and the classrooms are a little larger. There must be areas for special education and for instruction in art and music. The media centers/libraries are larger. Wiring is included to support technology. In the elementary schools, multipurpose rooms are required.

Besides Shirley High School, Chenal Elementary in Pulaski County and Melbourne High School in Izard County will be newly opening this year.

Chenal, built and furnished for $15 million, will have about 450 pupils in kindergarten through fifth grades. The 75,000-square-foot school has a pair of two-story classroom wings connected by a rotunda, which is divided by a grand staircase. Each classroom has an electronic device that makes a standard white erase board interactive.

The gymnasium has the usual folding bleachers, but it also has a rock-climbing wall. The 120,000-square-foot Melbourne High, built at a cost of about $13.5 million, will serve 450 students in grades seven through 12 who are coming together from two high schools —the old Melbourne High and Mount Pleasant High. Mount Pleasant School District was annexed into Melbourne in 2004.

The school’s new features include larger classrooms, new technology, a parking lot that will hold about 750 cars, a football field, a track, a gymnasium, four science laboratories, a cafetorium that seats 600, and a student union with 32-foot ceilings.

Safety features include security cameras, a keyless entry and immediate building-lockdown system, an underground storm shelter big enough to hold all of the students, air-quality sensors and a 100 percent fresh-air exchange for classrooms.