Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Ohio District Breaks Ground on New Elementary School

  • By Matt Jones
  • 04/12/21

This weekend, school leadership in Finneytown, Ohio, broke ground on a new elementary school slated to open in spring 2022. The facility will measure in at 90,000 square feet, and its $22 million price tag will be split between the Ohio Construction Commission and the Finneytown Local School District.

“The current buildings have served the community well, but it is time to have new facilities,” said Terri Noe, Finneytown Local School District Superintendent. “The community understood that it was a better investment for the future to build new instead of trying to renovate the older facilities at a higher cost.”

The new facility, Finneytown Elementary, will feature “learning communities” in which students from multiple grade levels will share a single environment. A news release explains that the goal is to encourage collaboration between students from different classrooms and from different grades.

“Our learning communities are by far the most striking feature of the new building,” said Finneytown Elementary Principal Meredith Baker. “By design, our students, staff, and community will be able to learn together in large, shared spaces in each academic wing. Having flexible spaces and project labs throughout the building facilitate the 21st-century learning our students need and deserve.”

According to Joseph Honnerlaw, a trustee of Springfield Township, Ohio, the new facility will have “a deep and positive impact on the community for years to come, serving generations of families and providing quality educational opportunities for our children.”

The facilities will also feature enhanced safety and wellness features, as well as updated ventilation. Finneytown Schools is partnering with Skanska USA and emersion Design on the project’s design and construction.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Texas A&M Opens First Building at Fort Worth Campus, Breaks Ground on Research Facility

    The Texas A&M University System marked a major milestone in the development of its Fort Worth campus by opening its first completed academic building and breaking ground on a second facility designed to expand research and industry collaboration.

  • California High School Opens New Classroom Building for 7th-, 8th-Graders

    Santa Rosa City Schools in Santa Rosa, Calif., recently announced the completion of a new classroom building for Piner High School. As the campus transitions to a Junior/Senior High School, the facility will play home to the school’s new population of seventh- and eighth-grade students.

  • Opportunity by Design Framework

    Opportunity by Design

    Educational improvement efforts often focus on curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional development, and intervention systems while treating the physical school building as background. But school design is not a passive backdrop to learning — it is a structural lever for equity.

  • Missouri Child Development Center Completes $2.3M Expansion

    The Urban Sprouts Child Development Center in St. Louis, Mo., recently announced the completion of a $2.3-million expansion and adaptive reuse project, according to a news release. The new space includes a retail café, outdoor learning space, and a support office building.