CLINTON—Construction on the new elementary school in the Clinton Community School District is on time to finish this August and welcome 4K through 6th grade students this fall.
Now called the Clinton Elementary School, the school at 115 Milwaukee St. was formerly a middle school for the district. The cost to renovate the new elementary school is about $22 million. The former elementary school at 301 East St. will be demolished.
“The 22,000-square-foot addition at the new elementary school is 95% complete right now,” said Brandon Loomer, director of facilities, grounds and safety at Clinton Community School District. “We’re actually starting to move furniture from the old school into the new school. This week, and last week, the main focus has been (re-paving) our parking lots and all of our driveways.”
The renovations for the elementary school should be done by next week, Loomer said. The new elementary school will have a new 3,500-square-foot cafeteria/commons area and a collaborative group area between the 4K and and kindergarten classrooms.
In November 2020, a referendum was approved by voters for a facilities upgrade of around $32 million to help with maintenance, renovations and more for the school district buildings. Around $10 million went to the Clinton Junior High School for upgrades for a new auxiliary gym, upgraded wood shop, tech ed and agriculture classrooms. The junior-high school will provide learning space for students from grades 7 to 12.
“Those additions (for the junior senior high) were completed in January,” Loomer said. “We still have a little bit of renovation going on in here, but very little. That’ll be wrapped up in the next two weeks.”
The new auxiliary gym for seventh and eighth graders has the same flooring as the main junior senior high school gym. Loomer said that the gym was a large chunk of the $10 million they used at the junior senior high school.
“The tech ed wings are about a 5,000-square-foot addition,” Loomer said. “That is roughly 18,000 square feet. Even though the stuff that’s in those shops are very expensive, and they’re more education based.”
The district has been working on project after project, Loomer said. He’s been grateful that they’ve been able to do more with the $32 million than they originally thought. He says that a month from now (late August), the projects should be almost finished.
“I’ll still have contractors in working probably until October or November,” Loomer said. “It’s just doing some touch-ups that maybe nobody would have noticed but sometimes it takes a little time to get control setting everything for your mechanical systems.”
In his two years with the district, Loomer has working exclusively on construction projects since he was hired right before the referendum took place.
The Clinton Community School District will be back in session Sept. 1 for the fall school year.
Beloit Daily News