The Little Rock (Arkansas) School District has held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark completion of the new Dr. Marian G. Lacey K-8 Academy.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports the 238,000-square-foot facility has been built on a 13-acre site that once was the site of John L. McClellan High School. The $94 million campus has space for more than 1,000 students and includes a 1,500-seat gymnasium, a FEMA-certified storm shelter, a dance studio and multiple large makerspace project rooms.
The school will open in August and will serve pupils who now attend Baseline Elementary, the former Meadowcliff Elementary and Cloverdale Middle schools in the southwest section of Little Rock.
The school is named for a long-time district principal and assistant superintendent who died in 2017.
Construction of the school was intended to fulfill commitments the district made in a settlement of a federal lawsuit that had challenged both the 2015 takeover of the district by the state and what were described as racially disparate schools and services within the district.
