MISSOULA – Teachers at Cold Springs Elementary School say they are excited to move into their new building and to make the space their own.
All of the teachers and staff got to take a tour of the future Jeannette Rankin Elementary School building for the first time on Friday.
The original Cold Springs Elementary School was built in 1930 and with its additions could hold around 500 students, but MCPS says on their website that "overcrowding, inadequate technology infrastructure and an aged building create educational and safety deficits that do not support 21st-century teaching and learning.”
"Most teachers looked at the space and said ‘we can make do’ you know, that’s just what teaching is about is figuring out how to use what you have and make it good. But then they said actually your school is not going to work. The district decided that," said Cold Springs librarian Sidney Hahn.
It was then that a group of staff members were tasked with figuring out what they wanted the new space to look like.
"It’s crazy. It’s huge. You know, when you’re doing it for 500 kids and their families and community and wanting it to be this magnificent beautiful space and you have no idea. You know, you have no idea what it will be," Hahn said.
Hahn and many others had the chance to begin planning for when they would get to make the space their own, "circulation desk will be over here where kids will check out books. Then this area is the collections and shelves," Hahn explained during the tour.
The school is being built on Big Fork Road across from Maloney Ranch Park and when it’s completed the facility will have an outdoor field and blacktop for kids to play.
The goal is to have the new building finished and be moving students in by late fall.
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