With the opening of the new addition to the CTE building at Liberty-Eylau High School, the district has one more building to complete using the $20.8 million in school bonds voters approved in 2016.
Scheduled to open in August 2018, the elementary school on U.S. Highway 59 is coming along. Concrete was poured at the site last week, which district Communication Director Matt Fry said is a big step toward getting the doors open for children for the fall semester of 2018.
"Now that the concrete has been poured, we're good," he said. "Things will start moving really fast now." That includes the walls going up Friday on the special education portion of the school, along with portions of the roof. Steel beams soon will be placed across the hallway in the school's storm shelter portion of the building, which will also serve as classrooms.
"People driving by will start to see the progress pretty quickly," Fry said.
He said he's worked on plans for the inside of the building with Jackie Shepard, interior design consultant with Thacker-Davis Architects of Longview, Texas, who designed the building.
"We're going to have plastic laminate panels on the walls to give a clean and cool look," he said. The laminate will create a seamless wall that is very resilient, easy to clean and antimicrobial to maintain the atmosphere and keep children safe, Fry said.
Each area of the school will have colorful rectangular tiles on the floor, and large panels with quotes on them will be placed outside the library and the cafeteria.
"I've been getting the teachers to give me some of their favorite quotes from children's books. So I want to do huge, just kind of inspirational quotes from a lot of these books about who you are, and all that," he said. "I've been working with some of them and getting their ideas on what we want the message of the school to be, because that's what you'll see when you walk in."
New Fritz tile has been chosen for the large leopard logo to be featured on the floor of the entrance hallway.
For furniture, administration is planning to buy multipurpose modular items that are mobile to increase the fluidity of the classroom environment. Fry said he expects requests for proposals for those items to go out sometime in January.
The CTE addition at the high school includes a large, industrial cooking classroom for students to learn culinary arts and train for jobs in the hospitality industry.
Graphic art and design, communication, marketing, welding and automotive classes are also held in the building, along with heating and air-conditioning courses.
The expansion also includes a state-mandated storm shelter designed to hold the building's entire population in case of a natural disaster. The elementary and prekindergarten buildings also have the shelters, which have their own restrooms, ventilation systems and water tanks.
Other improvements were made with the bond funds, including new turf, track, concession and restroom facilities at Harris Field. A roof was put on the middle school, and buildings throughout the district got new heating and air systems.
Construction on a new kindergarten wing at the pre-K building was included in the bond proposal, as well, and that was finished in time for the start of the fall 2017 semester.
Overall, the projects have seen little delay, Fry said, adding that having new, modern facilities for the students, especially those at the elementary school, is going to be a game-changer for education at Liberty-Eylau.
"Our goal is when the people walk in the school, there's no doubt this place was built for kids," he said.