Howbert, Jackson elementaries celebrate expansion

From the outside, you wouldn’t know that Howbert and Jackson elementary schools have changed. The bricks match, the trim's the same color.

But staff and students have spent the past few weeks spreading out into additions that provided needed classrooms and a few extra amenities.

“It makes our space so much more functional,” Howbert principal Gail Smartt said of the school’s remodeled media center. “It has definitely transformed our school.”

Both schools celebrated their additions this week with open houses.

In April 2009, the Colorado Springs School District 11 board approved $2.7 million for a four-classroom addition at Howbert and a six-classroom addition at Jackson. In the otherwise standard classrooms were projectors and  interactive white boards, which allow teachers to use the latest technologies in their instruction.

The projects were part of a massive change in the district in which eight schools were closed, two schools were moved and others were consolidated.

The additions at both schools were completed in December and came in with enough money left for a couple of additional projects at each school, said project manager Val Baughman.

Jackson’s intercom system was upgraded, and some security systems were added, he said, and Howbert got some badly needed remodeling for its media center.

The media center was once an enclosed courtyard with steps that ran the length of the room, making it difficult to do much with that side. It also housed the computer lab in one corner.

The lab was moved into a nearby classroom, and bookshelves and storage units now cover most of the old stairs, creating a physical and sound barrier to what was an open passage through the school.

Baughman said when planners realized they’d have enough money to do the remodel the district prebuilt the shelves so the media center changes could happen during the winter break.

Smartt said parents came in and helped pack up books and other items and moved them into the cafeteria. Then they came back and moved everything back to the library as school started again in early January.

She said Howbert this year added about 35 students, mostly from Whittier Elementary School, which closed. The school used portable classrooms until the addition was completed, although the portables now are used for tutoring and gifted and talented classes, which used to find space “wherever they could,” Smartt said.

She said she believes the turmoil over school closures and moves has calmed.

“We’re all Howbert now,” she said.