Atlanta Public School officials will mark a milestone in the construction of the new Howard Middle School facility, Friday.
 
A topping off ceremony, held to mark the placement of the highest beam of the building, will take place on the construction site of the school, which had been the old Howard High School before it was closed in 1976. School officials, including Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Meria Carstarphen, along with members of the Howard High School Alumni Association, are expected to attend the event and sign the beam.
 
Howard High produced several prominent graduates including Walk “Clyde” Frazier, NBA Hall of Fame member; Maynard H. Jackson, Atlanta’s first black mayor; Vernon Jordan, a successful businessman and former advisor to U.S. President Jimmy Carter; and Mildred McDaniel Singleton, the only woman to win a gold medal at the 1956 Olympics in track and field (high jump). Also, famed civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. attended Howard when it was an elementary school.
 
A $52 million renovation of the campus is converting the building into a middle school to relieve overcrowding in the Grady Cluster. When Howard Middle School opens in the fall of 2020, it will house seventh and eighth graders, while the current middle school facility, Inman Middle School, will house students in sixth grade.