(Lake Park)– Tuesday (Feb. 17th) is a big day for the Harris-Lake Park Community Schools. The first day of classes will be held at the brand new elementary school.
Construction on the new school, attached to the Middle School/High School facility, was substantially completed about a week and-a-half ago. That’s more than a month ahead of schedule, which was bumped up after a boiler failure at the old elementary building in early January that forced the relocation of students.
Superintendent Mike Thompson says staff and faculty have spent the last few days moving into the new school. He adds students last week toured the new facility to get them at least somewhat familiar with their new surroundings before Tuesday’s (Feb. 17th) first day of classes in the new building…
“What we’ve done is we’ve taken some of our classes down. Our teachers have walked in the new part of the building with their classes to show them where their classes are going to be, they’ve transferred all the stuff out of their lockers and into their new lockers, they’ve looked at the playground, they’ve walked through the gym. So they’re a little familiar with the new space but that’s going to be a whole lot different when they sit in classrooms.”
Thompson says the excitement is palpable, not only among students, but faculty and staff as well…
“Any time that you take young kids through a lot of different transitions, we’ve had a few different transitions this year, but they’re pumped, they’re excited to get in.”
HLP Elementary Principal Becca Mathiesen says the new school incorporates the latest technology and designs to provide a high quality learning environment…
“One of the biggest advantages that we’ve all commented on, teachers and myself, is just all of the natural light. We’re not used to windows coming out of our old elementary, so we’re pretty excited about that. And then just how our new elementary rooms are set up. Some of the reading nooks we have, some of the small group spaces we have, some of the flex seating in the hallways for our kids. We just have a lot to offer in this building that we did not have in the other building, so.”
Mathiesen expressed her appreciation to everyone who made the move possible over the past few days, along with staff at the middle school/high school.
School Board President Ebony Rahe expressed gratitude to residents of the Harris-Lake Park Community School District for making the project possible…
“I can’t say enough about our community and the support we had for this new project. And then everything from our administration to our teachers. The work they’ve put in has been really awesome. They did a lot of work over these past four days to really get everything put together.”
Voters in the Harris-Lake Park Community School District approved an $18.6 million bond issue for the new elementary and upgrades at the Middle School/High School in November, 2024.
