For Birnbaum, FDMS principal, and Johnson, an assistant principal at FDMS, the experience wasn’t easy, but it was worth it in the end.

“That time frame will be etched in my mind forever,” Birnbaum said. “From July to September, the year we opened the new building.”

Birnbaum pointed to a white hard hat in his office with the Fort Dodge Community School District logo stamped on the front.

“That’s what we had to wear when we first came into the building of July that year, because the building wasn’t completed yet,” Birnbaum said.

The building was three to five months behind schedule, according to Birnbaum.

In the meantime, Birnbaum and Johnson had to set up an alternative office to prepare for the new school year.

“We called it ground zero,” Birnbaum said. “We set up a base in a computer classroom at the high school as we waited for the new building to open up.”

Johnson recalled dealing with not only staffing concerns, but also the layout of the new building.

“According to the drawings we thought the main entrance to the building was the main entrance for students,” Johnson said. “We didn’t realize it wasn’t the entrance where students would come in. It ended up having to be at the far end of the building to make things work.”

They were also working on combining staffs from two different schools.

“We were putting together a staff from Fair Oaks of fifth- and sixth-grade staff with a seventh- and eighth-grade staff from Phillips,” Johnson said. “Those two staffs had to come together.”

For Johnson, who has taught in the FDCSD for 38 years, it was a time of uncertainty.

“We had a lot more questions than we did answers,” Johnson said. “Ed and I are pretty competitive and we just wanted to make sure everything was right. Sometimes we didn’t have the answers, but we kept working until we did get one.”

Johnson, Birnbaum and another administrator were able to move into a makeshift office in the new middle school later that summer as construction wrapped up.

“Our four secretaries couldn’t get in,” Birnbaum said. “They worked from the high school. Mark and myself were stuck in an office down at the end of the building. We had plastic tables, some laptop computers, a copy machine and a whiteboard.”

Even though the two had worked in the FDCSD for many years, 2013 was the first time the two had worked together.

“I knew who Mark was and he knew who I was, but we got to know each other in a hurry that year,” Birnbaum said. “We didn’t have a choice. If we disagreed with each other we had to come to some common ground pretty quickly.”

Birnbaum, who is in his 33rd year working in the FDCSD, said it was a difficult time, but made him stronger.

“It was extremely stressful at that point in time,” he said. “It was maybe the most challenging part of my career. The month of July and August, that first year we opened, I don’t think I was ever pushed to the limits like that before in my life. I am not sure I would want to do it over again, but now I am extremely thankful for it because it did help me develop some skillsets I didn’t have before.”

Birnbaum credited the staff for their patience and support.

“Our staff is really second to none,” he said. “For the most part, we have the same staff. They treat us very well and they knew what a challenge it was to open the school.”

A lot of people were interested in seeing the finished product, he said.

“This was about a $32 million building and has 1,100-plus students in it with 120 staff,” he said. “The community was really intrigued with it. When you drive by on 10th Avenue North it’s kind of a majestic site. Tax payers wanted to see what they were getting for the money.”

Johnson, who also serves as athletic director, said eventually things settled down.

“I think once school started and the students came in we were able to come up with better solutions,” he said. “We made changes and tweaks here and there to get to where everyone was happy.”

Birnbaum said he sees progress at the school.

“We are in such a better place four years into it as opposed to four years ago,” he said. ‘We have learned a lot and our staff has learned a lot.”

Johnson said in many ways the middle school is now a model for other schools in the area.

“There are a lot of schools that want to know how we do things,” Johnson said. “Kids can’t wait to come here. At the end of the day sometimes it’s hard to get them to go home.”

Schools that visit the middle school for athletic events take notice, too.

“As an athletic director, when other schools come here as visiting teams, their jaws drop and their eyes open,” Johnson said. “They wish they could be part of this.”

With the school now in a better place, Johnson and Birnbaum are content with their plans to retire at the end of the school year.

“We hope we have set a good foundation to build upon,” Johnson said. “This school will continue to get better and better as time goes on. Hopefully we have set a foundation.”

Birnbaum said after spending the majority of his life in one spot, he is looking to explore other options.

“The district has definitely benefited me and helped me become a good person or a better person anyways,” Birnbaum said. “I don’t know where the path will take me yet, but I would like to do something different.”

“I think I started walking the halls of a Fort Dodge school in 1967,” Birnbaum added. “I would just like to see some things differently in the near future and enjoy some things in life you can’t enjoy when you are the head of a building with 1,100 kids.”

Johnson feels the same way.

“I would like to do some traveling,” Johnson said. “I had a great run here through the years and met a lot of great people and developed great relationships, but it’s come time where I want to spread out and see what else is out there.”

“We still have our health and that’s a good time to go out and do some things we always wanted to do,” Johnson added.

“Forty years goes by faster than you think. I think that’s a country song, but it’s true. Don’t blink because it goes by faster than you think. It really does.”

The two said their last day will likely be sometime in June.

“If you need to find us in July we will probably be on a boat somewhere,” Johnson said.