Work is substantially complete on the $3.6 million wing at Norco Elementary School.
The 21,167 square-foot facility includes 13 classrooms of which four are special education, a 3,600 square-foot library with two teaching areas and a reading deck, administrative offices and restrooms.
On Feb. 11, the School Board accepted the wing as substantially complete, pending a punch list of final items.Plans are to occupy the library by Easter break, said John Rome, executive director of physical plant services for the St. Charles Parish Schools. Full occupancy of the facility is planned by August 2015.
The wing at Norco Elementary, which has 473 students in kindergarten through fifth grade, brings the system closer to fulfilling its $45 million bond issued in 2012 aimed at eliminating portable buildings used as classrooms. The district asked voters allow it to borrow the money to expand six of its schools, as well as fund renovations at those schools and others.
“We’re at the tail end of this bond issue, which is why the board is seeking another bond issue,” Rome said.
Eliminating the portables as classrooms was critically important to improving safety, which was an issue in severe weather because it required moving the students into permanent structures.
The Norco Elementary wing will eliminate 10 portables, leaving only one for storage. System wide, Rome said, with the completion of other expansions in the school district, there will soon only be two portables left used for classrooms. By fall 2016, he anticipates this number will drop to zero.
At the peak of using portables, Rome said there were 120 to 130 of them in the system.
Norco Elementary school was originally built in 1929 and located on Apple Street. The current site was built in 1961 due to increased enrollment, and three new wings have been added since then.
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