One Jacksonville District 117 elementary school is almost near the finish line for a complete renovation.
Eisenhower Elementary School has a few minor pieces to wrap up before the building is completely finished with its renovation. The $13 million dollar renovation has completely overhauled the interior of the school with what Superintendent Steve Ptacek says is a model floor plan. Ptacek noted during the Board of Education meeting Thursday night just how much more space the building appears to have than before due to the new layout.
Ptacek says just a few things remain to be finished: “It looks fantastic. I can’t wait to show the brand new off to the community. We will have an Open House sometime after the students return on August 14th – so maybe the week after the 14th. We haven’t finalized that yet, but I will get that information out to the community in the next few weeks. People are going to be shocked. It looks like a brand new building. It was very different from the other renovations. The other renovations still felt like the old buildings but newer. This is a completely new facility.”
Ptacek says that the final pieces to be completed are on the exterior of the building: “If you drive by right now, you can still see some of the yellow insulation sticking out on the corners and some of the panels along the top near the rooftop. The contractor ran out of the metal for the new panels and just had to order more. The new panels should have arrived on Thursday or within the next couple of days. None of that stands in the way of opening the school. It’s all just exterior looks and that will be done soon.”
Ptacek says that staff returned to the building in early June: “They are all moved in. I’ve been in there multiple times this summer. I see teachers that are unpacking and getting their rooms ready for the school year. I think everyone is incredibly excited.”
With the completion of Eisenhower, the district currently has no major construction projects scheduled moving forward as they prepare for what Ptacek has predicted to be a rather gloomy financial picture set to hit public education all across the state in the upcoming fiscal year.
As a result of the completed project, the Board of Education announced on Thursday that committee of the whole sessions on meeting nights are being moved forward by a half hour. Instead of start times being at 6PM, they have been rolled forward to 6:30PM moving forward unless major business were to pop up.