Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Elementary School Built in 1800s to Get Modernization Upgrades

  • By Matt Jones
  • 06/14/21

Dubois Elementary School, part of Springfield School District 186 in Springfield, Ill., will see a series of renovations start this summer meant to modernize the campus while paying respects to its 125-year history. The school, which was built in 1897, will get additional classroom space, smaller spaces intended for group work, and its first elevator.

The school’s historical entry point, a vaunted façade facing Lincoln Avenue, will remain unchanged. Construction items include a new service road for ease of dropping off and picking up students and a new main entrance at street level.

“It’s respecting our history as we move forward into the future,” said Principal Dan Ford.

According to the district’s Facilities Master Plan, other renovations include security upgrades, rebuilding the boiler building’s north wall, renovations to four bathrooms, replacing exterior doors, and upgrades to the air circulation system. According to the State Journal-Register, the school saw its last major addition more than a century ago, in 1916.

District superintendent Jennifer Gill said that the project is finally coming to fruition after “a lot of work and engagement throughout our community. We had nine community engagement sessions, asking our public what they wanted to see in our schools and also by doing an educational feasibility study, where we looked at every school and the needs they had.”

The work will come to a total of about $2.5 million and is scheduled for completion in February 2022. Funding for the project comes from a 1% sales tax approved by Sangamon County voters in 2018. The architect of record is the Farnsworth Group.

About the Author

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

Featured

  • Massachusetts K–12 District Selects Architect for New Junior High

    Swansea Public Schools in Swansea, Mass., recently announced that it has selected Finegold Alexander Architects to design a new junior high school for the district, according to a news release. The firm will create the Feasibility Study and Schematic Design for Joseph Case Junior High School after a lengthy selection process by the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA).

  • How a Portable Sink Helped an Art Classroom Run More Smoothly

    Classroom design decisions can have outsized effects on instructional time and safety at schools juggling mismatched infrastructure, strict budgets, and crowded schedules — particularly in the arts. Between spilled paint and dirty brushes, art classes run smoother with a sink in the studio. But many schools don’t have a sink in every art classroom.

  • Construction Begins on New University Research Vessel

    Boat-building company All American Marine recently announced that it has begun construction on a new catamaran research vessel for the University of Texas Marine Science Institute (UTMSI) in Port Aransas, Texas, according to a news release.

  • abstract illustration of school gym

    How the Gymnasium Can Serve as a Model for Learning Space Design

    Multipurpose gyms work because flexibility was built into the brief from the start, not retrofitted later. The same logic applies to academic spaces.