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Ribbon-cutting event unveils big addition to elementary school
Boardman
James Chengelis didn’t mind having class in the trailers outside Stadium Drive Elementary.
He said that when he was a student in the 1960s, kids had to walk between the main building and the trailers several times a day for things such as lunch or gym class, but teachers made the best of it.
“They told us, ‘You get to do some exercise and get some fresh air, and the other kids don’t,’” he said.
But decades later, the metal trailers that housed stu- dents like sardines are no more.
More than 100 administrators, faculty, parents and students attended Friday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony at the school, unveiling a 12,500-square-foot addition, which includes six classrooms, a reading center, a speech room, a computer lab and a library. The new space means there is no need for the trailers.
Stadium’s renovations are part of $6 million worth of renovations Boardman schools undertook this year, said Jim Massey, director of operations for the school district.
Those projects include similar renovations at Robinwood Lane Elementary and a new sports complex at Boardman High School. Construction on the two elementary schools began in August 2009.
The district is paying for the projects with donations and funds from the permanent improvement levy passed a few years ago, which brings in $900,000 annually. Chengelis donated $10,000 toward the construction of the library at Stadium Drive, which will be named for his parents, Theodore P. and Evelyn H. Chengelis.
“My mom and dad always valued education so much,” Chengelis said. “And we always read and went to the Boardman Library every Saturday.”
Robinwood had an open house to show renovations to parents and students Thursday.
Principal Don Robinson said his school added a music and art room, multiple classrooms for disability programs, third-grade classrooms, special-education resource rooms, an English-as-a-second-language classroom and tutoring areas.
Parking lots at both schools were modified to help traffic flow. Several classes at Robinwood had been in three trailers in a fenced area outside the school for the past 40 years, creating safety hazards.
“Basically, what we did was bring everything in that was outside and upgraded anything in a space that was not appropriate,” Robinson said.
Both Robinson and Jim Goske, Stadium Drive principal, agreed the results are impressive.
“The whole building just has a new feel to it, a new atmosphere,” Goske said. “It sort of gives you some new energy and new enthusiasm to come to work every day.”
School starts Tuesday for students at each elementary.