The excitement proves contagious from the moment you walk in.
Teachers and school staff lined the main hallway and cheered recently as students and their parents entered the brand new Northwest Harnett Elementary School.
“This by far is the nicest, biggest school we have built in my time at Harnett County” said Harnett County Superintendent Aaron Fleming.
Thanks to a $10 million Needs-Based Public School Building Capital Fund grant, Harnett County kick-started the $42 million building project and the results stop nothing short of beautiful.
This new school comes fully equipped to house a STEM program and direct access to the outdoor learning space from the classroom. Other amenities include a gym/auditorium for community events and a spacious mezzanine with communal seating that the students have already dubbed the “reading room.”
“They’ve been waiting for this,” said school principal Kimberly Smith. “We’ve been talking about it so when they came in they were just like, ‘wow.’ It’s just so colorful and vibrant. I mean it just makes me want to go back to school!”
That sense of awe doesn’t go away.
“The first week of school, they [the students] couldn’t even walk in a straight line,” said parent and teacher Landis Prince. She described all students could do as they walked in was look up, out, and around at all of the new walls, instruments, desks, and equipment surrounding them.
“We want them to be excited about coming to school,” said Smith. “You don’t realize a building can do that, but it really does make a difference. And it’s just been an exciting beginning.”
Check out the video to see the excitement about the new school.
The opening of the new Harnett County school stands as the latest new school in North Carolina as a wave of new school construction continues with the help and support of money raised by the lottery.
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