Over the past few years, the Hartselle High School issue has been a divisive issue.

There has been debate over whether the community needed a new high school. There’s been debate whether the high school was built in the right location.

There’s been even a discussion of how Hartselle City Schools went more than $4 million over its original budget of $40 million.

And we also saw the divisiveness of the new fieldhouse design and construction, as it appeared like one sport may not get the same attention as other sports.

It has definitely been a very difficult time as the school system has been pressing on with the new school construction.

There was even debate of whether we should begin school in the middle of the second semester.

However, it’s time to move forward as a community as our new high school opened this week.

The new high school is wonderful and is going to be a feather in our cap that could draw many people to our city.

Was the school nicer than what we expected?

Yes.

Is this a school building without flaws?

No.

Did we need a school building the size of what we have?

You could argue both “yes” and “no.”

But that’s the beauty of our community. The people of Hartselle care deeply about its schools and everything that happens inside the city limits. We always want the absolute best in every situation.

There will be lessons learned from this project, but overall I think this went about as well as it possibly could.

It’s impossible for us to have a perfect project that everyone agrees with every aspect of it, but I definitely think we all have a building we can be proud of. And that’s something we can all share in.

It’s great to be in Hartselle.

Brent Maze is the managing editor of the Hartselle Enquirer.