Carol McFall, seventh-grade English and geography teacher at South Junior High School, loads up her car on the last day of school. McFall and other faculty and students start school next year in a new building.

Students and faculty at South Junior High School said farewell to their nearly 39-year-old building Wednesday.

And they’re eager for the day next fall when they will work and learn in a larger, brighter building – one in which they don’t have to walk in circles.

South Junior High School, which opened in January 1969, has one main circular hallway and an open-classroom design. Soon it will be torn down. Students and teachers will begin next school year in a $31.9 million building, going up just northeast of the old school at 2734 La.

The more traditional 114,000-square-foot building features 51 classrooms, a library/media center, competition and auxiliary gymnasiums, and an auditorium.

Principal Will Fernandez said a main issue at the old school was lack of hallway and open space.

“The new school will have wide-open hallways and wide-open spaces,” he said. “We won’t have the space issues we had at the old building.”

Also, Fernandez said, the new building will provide 90 percent more natural light than the old building, where the only windows are at entrances.

Not everything will improve with the move to the new building.

Several murals painted along the walls of the old building will be lost when the building is demolished.

Ron Garvin, physical education teacher at South Junior High since 1974, who is retiring, has seen the walls change and said he is impressed with how long they were maintained.

“One of the unique things about that is that students have done a great job of retaining the murals,” he said. “They really respect the previous students’ work.”

Delaney Dieker, a ninth-grader at South next fall, said she enjoyed going to classes in the old building.

“It’s real unique and it’s interesting going to a school like no one else goes to,” Dieker said.

Another soon-to-be ninth-grader, Kirstyn Heine, worried it could be a challenge navigating a traditional school.

“It will be like seventh grade all over again,” she said. “I won’t know my way around at all.”

The principal said he hopes to continue many traditions at the new school to help ease the students’ transition – regular dances and the same clubs and activities – but he’s not certain the mural tradition will carry over.

“It won’t happen right away, but it’s something we’ll look into later down the road,” he said.