Construction is progressing on a new Edgewood Elementary School with the goal of opening during the upcoming school year.
Watson Chapel Superintendent Danny Hazelwood said the ongoing building project has been successful and is meeting his expectations for opening in either December or early January 2015. Edgewood enrolls kindergartners and first-graders.
“Progress is going well. Everything is going according to schedule without any major glitches,” Hazelwood said. “We hope to transition into the new building during the Christmas holiday break.”
The original Edgewood Elementary School buildings opened in the 1950s and have outlasted their use, he said. The district spends more money to maintain these buildings than is feasible, he said.
Kindergartners and first-graders will return to the existing school buildings when classes resume in August, Hazelwood said. He expects the new building to be complete in October, one year after a groundbreaking ceremony. The land where the new building is being built was previously covered in trees.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“We are anxious to move into the new building,” Hazelwood said. “This is a year of transition.”
The total price tag is about $10 million, Hazelwood said. In September 2013, the Watson Chapel School District Board of Directors voted to authorize the expenditure of up to $1.1 million of district funds to pay for costs associated with the construction of the new Edgewood Elementary School.
The expenditure will be reimbursed from proceeds of the $4,265,000 bond offering approved by voters in a special millage election earlier in 2013, according to the reimbursement resolution approved by the school board. The bond is for a duration of 30 years, Hazelwood said.
The Arkansas Department of Education is providing about $6 million through a partnership agreement with the Watson Chapel School District, Hazelwood said.
The new building features Chromebook wireless computers in every classroom, a multimedia library and a vocal music room, Hazelwood said. The building will be large enough to house 500 students, although the current enrollment is smaller than that figure.
“We are committed to making sure every student has access to a computer,” he said.
After the teachers and students move into the new building, the old buildings will be torn down.
Also in the Watson Chapel School District, Coleman Intermediate School is receiving new air conditioning units this summer. Coleman enrolls students in grades four through six.
“We expect the air-conditioning project to be done right around the start of school,” Hazelwood said.
A portion of the funding comes from the Facilities Partnership Program of the Arkansas Department of Education, with the rest coming from the district budget, he said.