FORTVILLE — It’s been three years since the Mt. Vernon School Board announced that a new elementary school and transportation center would be necessary to accommodate the booming growth in the school district.
On Wednesday, Nov. 30, that talk turned to action when school officials, community leaders and architects broke ground on the new Fortville Elementary School and Mt. Vernon transportation center, to be built on a 50-acre parcel of land just north of the district’s administration center at 1806 W. State Road 234 in Fortville.
Mt. Vernon Schools Superintendent Jack Parker addressed the small crowd gathered Wednesday within a heated tent on the future construction site, thanking the community’s support in making the projects possible.
“We are thrilled to be able to move these projects forward so we can move into the future,” he said.
“It seems surreal that we’re here,” added school board president Kellie Freeman. “We’ve been talking about this for a long time. It’s exciting to see it coming to fruition.”
The school board anticipates a maximum $84.25 million bond issue to fund the improvements.
Officials estimate that the transportation center will be complete by the start of the 2023-24 school year, and the elementary school will be ready by the start of the 2025-26 school year.
The current Fortville Elementary School, located just north of Mt. Vernon High School, will be converted to a new intermediate school in the fall of 2025 when Mt. Vernon schools switch from a three-tier to four-tier school system.
Parker said that will allow for more room within each building, with kindergarteners through fourth graders at the district’s three elementary schools, fifth and sixth graders at the intermediate school, seventh and eighth graders at the middle school, and ninth through twelfth graders at the high school.
Parker said the current Fortville Elementary School building was originally built as an intermediate school, with locker bays, a band room, and a sizeable gymnasium and cafeteria, but it was converted to an elementary school several years ago.
Converting the school back to an intermediate school and building a new elementary was more cost effective than building a new intermediate school, Parker said.
The district’s growth plan is based on a study done in 2019, which estimated the school system was going to experience 50 percent growth over a 10-year period, growing from just over 4,000 to 6,000 students by the start of the 2028-29 school year.
“With that information and some other work we were doing, we felt like we needed the community’s input on what that growth should look like as far as facilities go,” said Parker.
In August 2019, the district invited 300 “community champions” to share input on what that growth should look like. After an initial meeting of 300 guests, a team of 50 “community champion advisors” was created to focus on the growth over the next eight months.
What they came up with was a call for a new elementary school, a shift to a four-tier system and a new transportation center to accommodate the district’s growing fleet of buses.
The proposal was approved by the school board in March 2020, just as the COVID pandemic was starting to turn the world upside down.
Growth has slowed somewhat within the district since then, allowing school officials to postpone the initial proposal to have the new school in place by the start of the 2023-24 school year.
“We’re feeling pretty good about delaying our construction by two years,” said Parker. “The timing is lining up perfectly,” he told the crowd gathered Wednesday. “We’ve found our sweet spot, so now it’s time to go.”
Officials from architectural firm Beebe Designs and project management company AECOM Hunt were on site to share plans for the upcoming construction.
James Gully, project executive for AECOM Hunt, explained that the earth work for both the school and transportation center would kick off in January and that the foundation and steel framing would start next spring.
Construction of the new 10,000-square-foot transportation center is slated to start in May.
Mark Beebe, owner of Beebe Design, said the new Fortville Elementary School will be a warm and welcoming environment with a state-of-the art STEM lab and an atrium that serves as a media center in the middle of the school.
While the exterior may mirror the adjacent high school, intermediate school and middle school, Beebe said the interior would reflect a new concept of learning, with collaborative spaces where classes can come together for group learning.
Fortville Elementary Principal Vince Edwards said the new state-of-the-art school will give students the ideal environment for learning.
“Research has shown that well-designed buildings and pleasant environments can lead to better attendance and attention for students, as well as have an effect on motivation and self-worth … I can’t wait for the doors of this amazing new building to open,” he said while pointing out that a top-notch school is nothing without top-notch educators.
“More important than any building are the people in it,” said Edwards. “We are blessed with so many dedicated staff members who give of themselves each day for the benefit of our students. I look forward to continuing to work with (them) to create an incredible space for the children of Fortville to use and enjoy, and I have confidence that the final product will be something our community can be proud of for years to come.”
