ROGERS — Kindergarten, elementary and middle school students at the Benton County School of the Arts will go to school Monday with some big changes to their campus.
Students and parents toured the new facilities Thursday evening.
The cafeteria has a kitchen, which means no more catered school lunches. A former church building across the street now houses classrooms, which means no more cramped choir practices and guitar lessons in rooms originally meant for storage.
Those are some of the improvements made to the campus as part of a $1.02 million renovation and construction project. Paul Hines, the school’s superintendent, said the project will likely be the last expansion for the public charter school.
Students and parents touring the elementary and middle school campus Thursday gave positive early reviews to the renovations.
“Wow,” said Emmy Richard, 13, standing in the new choir room, formerly the sanctuary in the church building. “It’s big — a lot more room.”
Choir classes were previously held in an office, the cafeteria and a storage room.
Lauren Hartwig, 8, said she was pleased with the new cafeteria, especially the kitchen.
“It looks better,” she said. “I’m going to like this year.”
Debi Hartwig, Lauren’s mother, agreed with her daughter’s assessment.
“It was kind of dumpy before,” she said.
Hines said the school will be able to participate in the National School Lunch Program for the first time because of the kitchen. The school was ineligible with catered food, he said.
Fifteen percent of the school’s kindergarten, elementary and middle school students qualified for free or reduced school lunches under the program in 2009, according to the National Office for Research on Measurement and Evaluation Systems, which keeps track of school statistics.
The project also includes the construction of a 4,000-square-foot library and media room and six classrooms, Hines said. He said he hopes to have the project finished by the end of the year.
The school has about 700 students from kindergarten through 12th grade.
Its kindergarten-through-eighth-grade campus is on South 12th Street, south of New Hope Road. The high school campus is on Poplar Street near the Fifth Street intersection.
The school is free for students, and is funded through the same mechanisms as regular school districts.
As an open-enrollment charter school, it can draw its students from anywhere, not just a designated district.
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Benton County School of the Arts
http://bcsa.k12.ar.us/