Friday, January 07, 2000
School expansion taking shape
BY SUE KIESEWETTER
Enquirer Contributor
TRENTON — The 200 children at Babeck Elementary School barely notice the noise from tractors or other heavy construction equipment.
Parents and staff don't mind that the entrance to their school has changed twice since classes began five months ago.
For them it has become part of the daily routine at this Butler County elementary school, undergoing its first expansion since it opened in 1961. When a year of work is completed in August, there will be a two-story, 35,700-square-foot addition that will more than double the building's size.
It is part of an $18.9 million project approved by voters last year that will pay for the addition at Babeck, an expansion at Edgewood High School and a connector between Bloomfield and Trenton elementary schools.
It is being done to accommodate rapidly growing student enrollment. Since 1993, the district has grown from 2,540 students to nearly 3,200. Projections call for 100-125 more students for the next several years, said Superintendent Dale Robertson.
“Our main thing is staying focused,” said Babeck Principal Jess Wilson. “We've gotten used to certain noises. And the teachers have let the kids watch briefly as the cement truck comes to pour something. They're working it into lessons on how a building is built. The contractors have kept in mind we're a school and there's been as little disruption as possible.”
And even as work is being finished at Babeck, it will begin at Bloomfield/Trenton and at Edgewood High School.
“We're tighter (this year) at the elementary levels than we thought we'd be because our enrollment is about a year ahead of where our crystal ball told us they would be,” Mr. Robertson said.
“When I became principal at the middle school in 1994, we had 685 students and nine empty classrooms. There are over 1,000 kids now and no empty space anywhere,” he said. “It's a daily task in keeping up with the growth.”
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