Chelsea Jackson, 7, (right) and Christina Palmer, 7, talk with the Loveland Tiger mascot before the rededication ceremony (Michael Snyder photos) | ZOOM |

        LOVELAND — Educators in the Loveland Schools can put away their hard hats.

        Wednesday's rededication of the early childhood center, primary, elementary and middle schools marks the end of construction projects that added classrooms or made improvements to every school in the district. It will be the first time in more than two years that the bang and buzz of construction will not be the background noise heard in the schools.

        Six-year-old Megan Kiley had gotten used to the noise — and says she will miss it — at the Loveland Early Childhood Center.

        “I heard the noise. I liked the noise,” the kindergartner said after the rededication ceremony. “I felt like I was a worker when I heard it.”

        A $32 million bond issue approved by voters in November 1998 paid for the construction of the Loveland Intermediate School for fifth- and sixth-graders that opened last fall. It also paid for projects that rewired the elementary schools, gutted the middle school and added classrooms at the high school. All that's left now is to move furnishings back into the middle school, which will reopen in August after a year-long renovation.

A brick archway was added to the Loveland Primary School | ZOOM |

        Under the reconfiguration, preschool and kindergarten students will attend classes at the former Lloyd Mann Elementary, renamed the Loveland Early Childhood Center. First- and second-graders will go to Loveland Primary School. Loveland Elementary will house third- and fourth-graders. Grades 5 and 6 will stay in the new intermediate school while grades 7 and 8 return to the rebuilt and expanded middle school.

        “Your school is so beautiful,” Superintendent Michael Cline told the preschool and kindergarten children.“This was all done for you. I never want you to go to a school where the ceilings are exposed and wires are hanging down.”

        Loveland parent Heather Sherlock said she likes the improvements.

        “It's looking pretty good,” Mrs. Sherlock said. “They always kept the construction away from the kids and I liked that.”
       

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