Jacksonville School District officials are keeping an eye on the traffic situation at Jacksonville Middle School with the modular classrooms.
Washington Elementary parents are having to drop off students at Jacksonville Middle School through the first half of the school year while the renovations are ongoing.
Superintendent Steve Ptacek said last week that there was only minor traffic chaos with student drop-off and pick-up last week. Ptacek says he expects some minor amounts of chaos as everyone gets back into the habit of pick-up/drop-off at the beginning of each school year: “I think there are absolutely going to be inconveniences and I hope that everyone keeps their eye on the prize of a brand new school building as the end product. We thought about the traffic situation, and people have had to wait, but most of the exchange was done within a half hour…We’ll continue to monitor the situation and see about if we will have to make any changes moving forward.”
Ptacek says the same kind of congestion happened when renovations were going on with South Elementary and Lincoln Elementary in the recent past. He believes as people get further into the school year, the process of pick-up/drop-off will get smoother: “It’s manageable chaos. It eventually smooths itself out.”
Washington Elementary renovations have a tentative date of completion by this school year’s winter break. Contractors aren’t committing to a solid date because of ongoing delays with construction and supply chain issues.