SPRINGDALE -- Work crews are busy putting finishing touches on two campuses opening for students in less than a month.
Tradesmen are working throughout the new Don Tyson School of Innovation, with some parts of the 143,000-square-foot building further along than other parts. Construction manager firm Baldwin & Shell has assured school officials the school will be ready, Principal Joe Rollins said.
New Springdale campuses
• Linda Childers Knapp Elementary School, opening on Oriole Street near J.O. Kelly Middle School for 600 elementary children. Connected to a center for 300 pre-kindergarten children.
• Don Tyson School of Innovation, moving to Habberton Road for about 600 eighth- through 10th-graders. Campus will grow to about 1,000 in eighth through 12th grades.
— Staff report
"It's amazing how far they've come in the last 30 days," Rollins said. "There's still work to be done. It will be."
Carpet floors are installed and walls are painted throughout the roughly 90,000-square-foot Linda Childers Knapp Elementary. Crews continue to make progress on the cafeteria, gymnasium and an attached pre-kindergarten center.
School Board members toured the new campuses Tuesday during a quarterly work session before their regular meeting.
Teachers at the School of Innovation will be moving in Aug. 5, Rollins said.
The move-in date for most of the staff at Childers Knapp will be Aug. 1, though the library and some other specialized spaces will follow a few days later, Principal Cindy Covington said.
The School of Innovation started two years ago with about 200 eighth-graders at The Jones Center. It grew to about 345 eighth-graders and freshmen this past school year. It's a demonstration site for a series of projects the School District is implementing to personalize education using some money from a federal four-year Race to the Top grant of $25.88 million.
The School of Innovation anticipates having a student body of about 600 eighth-graders, freshmen and sophomores on its physical campus in the new school year. As a new district-run charter school, the School of Innovation also will operate a Virtual Institute for students in eighth through 12th grades. Students will have options for face-to-face instruction, online instruction or both.
Superintendent Jim Rollins, Joe Rollin's father, told School Board to expect a different environment for learning. The School of Innovation is designed to focus on self-paced learning and teamwork.
"You're going to see a lot of big open spaces," Jim Rollins said. "The program has been written for personalization."
Three pods are included in the north academic wing of the school that will be ready for students in the first semester. A south wing will remain under construction but is expected to open in early 2017, Jim Rollins said.
The pods are about 5,000 square feet, large enough to fit five to six standard-sized classrooms, said Bradley Chilcote, architect for Wittenberg, Delony & Davidson Architects in Little Rock.
Instead of going from one class to the next, students will meet in a pod for multiple subjects taught by a group of teachers, Joe Rollins said.
"Where are the walls?" he asked School Board members as he explained the concept.
Each pod is connected to a science labs and one of three career and technical learning labs.
School Board member Mike Luttrell is interested to see if the new concept makes the path into higher education easier for students, especially knowing 65 percent of the school's enrollment is composed of low-income students, he said. The idea is for students to graduate with a high school diploma and either with or close to finishing an associate's degree from Northwest Arkansas Community College.
Luttrell hopes the students will have a better chance of becoming employed as a result, he said.
The new Childers Knapp school has a similar design as many of the elementary schools in Springdale. The front office sits to the left of the main hallway.
Hallways for different grade levels are color-coded like they are at other elementary schools: yellow for kindergarten and first grade, bright green for second and third grades and a light blue for fourth and fifth grades.
An open area in the center of the campus has a large skylight accented by panels painted in red, blue, green and yellow. It provides natural light for an open space that sits between the campus library and its art and music rooms. Childers Knapp will share a school garden with nearby J.O. Kelly Middle School, Covington said. The school garden will be outside of the Childers Knapp library.
The campus also will house a new 300-pupil pre-kindergarten center, which is also nearing completion for the school year.
The staff is meeting every Thursday through July in preparation for opening the new campus, Covington said.
"It's a beautiful building with lots of color," Covington said.
NW News on 07/20/2016