Incoming first grader Aryanna Salinas was shy as she approached her new teacher, Kelly Gapinski. But she really wanted to know how to find some of the items on her scavenger hunt list.
The list was introduced as a fun way to orient students to their new surroundings before they start the school year. In Salinas’ and Gapinski’s case, that includes an entirely new classroom: one of eight built during the remodeling of Apollo Elementary School.
School board president Marnie Maraldo cut the ribbon on Apollo Tuesday afternoon, surrounded by a crowd of students and families eager to see inside the building. She was preceded with a performance of the National Anthem by the Apollo choir and a speech by principal Susan Mundell.
In addition to eight new classrooms (a ninth was spruced up during construction) the District expanded the campus’s multipurpose room, renovated the gym, added a new playground and installed durable flexible flooring among other tweaks.
Most significantly, the formerly open campus was enclosed into a single building in order to make it lockdown capable. Visitors are only able to enter from one door under clear view of administrative offices.
“They made the courtyard closed in,” said fourth-grader Rian Lautenslager, an avid math student. “I like that.”
Construction began last year and students remained on campus during much of the work. It was a challenge for staff and students, Mundell said, but both groups handled it well.
“The kids were amazingly resilient,” she said. “They got excited when they saw construction. They came in and saw something cool happen every day.
“Not that it wasn’t hard sometimes. In the winter, when it was raining and there were only construction lights here (in the hallways) that could be difficult.”
Gym Teacher Todd Johnson said he thought his new gym was “awesome.”
“I think there are going to be less injuries with these floors,” he said. “We’ll see some, but not the bone bruises of past years. I love the colors the let me pick out (on the floor) for classroom management.”
