The Richland 2 (S.C.) district has broken ground on an elementary school in Blythewood that will replace a campus composed of portable classrooms.
WLTX-TV reports that the $9.8 million project will provide a permanent home for the Center for Knowledge North, a magnet school for kindergarten through fifth grades.
The school curriculum incorporates cultural literacy, world history, human body systems and a host of other items.
Classes have been housed in multiple temporary portables since the school opened in 2007. The new facility will hold the nearly 300 student body, all under one roof.
Jessica Agee, the school's director, says that the space will be more open and functional.
"Classrooms won’t just function as a classroom," Agee says. "They can also be used as a performance area or a spot for teachers to co-teach together. We’re also going to be able to use our hallways spaces so what we tried to do was create an innovate space that allows us to use every space in multiple capacities."
The project is being funded with money from a $468.4 million referendum that voters approved in 2018.
The district says the tentative plan is to have students moved in and settled into the new facility before winter break of next year.
The architect is Goodwin Mills Caywood, and the builder is H.G. Reynolds.
