{"id":26605,"date":"2024-07-18T16:02:20","date_gmt":"2024-07-18T22:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dove-creek-elementary-school-grand-opening-set-for-early-august\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:42:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:42:50","slug":"dove-creek-elementary-school-grand-opening-set-for-early-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dove-creek-elementary-school-grand-opening-set-for-early-august\/","title":{"rendered":"Dove Creek Elementary School grand opening set for early August"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The new elementary school in Dove Creek will be completed before the first day of school on Aug. 14. (Ty Gray\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Dolores County RE-2J school district will be holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony and tour of their nearly completed elementary school on Aug. 7 from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

The ceremony will be on the grounds of the new Dove Creek Elementary School, 813 N. Main St. in Dove Creek, one week before the first day of school on Wednesday, Aug. 14.<\/p>\n

The ceremony will start with a welcome, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, speeches from Superintendent Ty Gray and elementary school Principal Charlotte Forst, ribbon cutting and tour.<\/p>\n

The groundbreaking<\/a> for was May 25, 2023. The district had worked to get the BEST grant to build school since 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of excitement starting to really come out,\u201d Gray told The Journal <\/em>on Wednesday. \u201cThe building looks pretty much complete on the outside, and with the old school coming down and seeing everything, it\u2019s becoming a reality to the community members that it is going to be done and ready for school.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Inside
Inside sneak peeks of the new Dove Creek Elementary School. (Ty Gray\/Courtesy photos)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Inside
Inside sneak peeks of the new Dove Creek Elementary School. (Ty Gray\/Courtesy photos)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The old elementary school has been demolished, according to Gray.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been time for teachers to get to work in a nice facility with everything they need,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to make the teacher\u2019s job much easier and more enjoyable. I hope they have a nice environment to work in,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n

During the groundbreaking in 2023, Forst spoke of the many challenges experienced in the old school building, including electrical and heating problems in winter. After visiting a school built by the BEST grant in Alamosa, Forst said she wanted that for students in Dove Creek too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe funny thing is I\u2019ve always taught in old buildings,\u201d Forst said. \u201cI went to school here; it\u2019s good enough to get by. We\u2019re tough, right? But I saw that building and I saw the inequity, and I saw that our kids don\u2019t have as nice of a building as the other students in the state do and that just broke my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

The building executive committee consists of Gray, Forst, Chase Davis, Vernon Hall and Roxie Guynes. The owner\u2019s representatives are Artaic Group\u2019s Sarah Lara, Chris Guarino and Matthew Prinster.<\/p>\n

The building and design was done by Neenan Archistruction, and the project was also worked on by Iconergy, Jones and DeMille Engineering and Foothills Environmental.<\/p>\n

The school is receiving its final touches. On July 17, the building received its final inspection and temporary certification of occupancy. The move-in is set for Monday, July 22.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Phase 1, the only thing remaining right now is a little bit of concrete work, a little bit of drainage work and landscaping,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n

The fire alarm rough inspection is complete, and the state inspection was completed Wednesday morning. Once they receive a thumbs-up from the inspectors, they can begin moving in next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe building is basically complete. We\u2019re supposed to take ownership of it tomorrow,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n

Phase 2 of the project will include the construction of a parking lot and a drop-off area for students. Until then, Gray said they find an alternative plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to put together a good logistics plan for how we\u2019re moving kids in and out of the building,\u201d Gray said. \u201cGet parents able to drop off, working around the construction project, where staff parks and getting staff in and out of the building without too big of a headache.\u201d<\/p>\n

The BEST approved project budget was $22,997,623. The school received $12.6 million from BEST grant through the capital construction program of the Colorado Department of Education, and a bond passed by voters in November 2022 provided $10.3 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got just about everything we asked for out of the project, so it\u2019s been a very good experience,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

built after the district was awarded BEST grant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[837,1727,80,155,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-26605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-county","tag-dolores-county-school-district-re-2j","tag-dove-creek","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79408,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26605\/revisions\/79408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26605"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}