Columbia Elementary students return to campus

For the first time since 2018, Columbia Elementary School children started their school year at their own campus.

Columbia’s students had to be housed at Centennial High School — over a 20-minute car ride away — due to a mold infestation at Columbia’s campus. The former school had to be demolished and rebuilt.

Columbia Elementary School Principal Michelle Valdez said that it has been yet another adjustment to get used to, but she is happy to be back.

“It has been a little chaotic learning how to be in an elementary school again,” Valdez said. “Like parent pick-up and drop-off. We had that but minimally at Centennial because they were so far away, most of our kids were on a bus.”

Valdez explained that transitioning from an elementary school to be in a high school had its challenges. Centennial had to add a playground, portable classrooms, remodel bathrooms to accommodate elementary school kids and more. This combined with the long drive put a strain on the school.

“When we moved to Centennial we had 465 students. At the end of last year, we had 181,” Valdez explained. “We had our early childhood programs here and when we moved to Centennial, they could not go with us because you can’t have three-year-olds. It was a stretch to have kinders but to have three-year-olds?”

With the new school building being opened and redistricting, Columbia is back to having around 540 students and early childhood is back. Valdez said she expects the school to grow probably to 750 — the new school’s capacity — “within the next couple of years.”

However, not all of the school’s construction is finished. Landscaping, parking lot expansion, the cafeteria, the gym, and many special classrooms are still being built. The cafeteria, gym and special classrooms are expected to be complete near the end of August. Other outdoor improvements like a walking path will be done in November.

While these facilities are being built, the school is having school lunches delivered and students eat in different places around the school. The school has two floors, and each grade gets a pod off of a main hallway. In that pod, classrooms surround a communal meeting space so each grade can meet all together if needed.

One teacher who experienced both moves is STEM Teacher Laurel Cutting. She has been teaching at Columbia for 14 years and said she is glad to be back.

“Its nice because everything is more their level and all of the stuff seems to fit the space but being at Centennial was not horrible,” Cutting explained.

While she is also enjoying a shorter commute working at the new school, she is also ready for construction to be done.

“I’m just looking forward to the rest of the school being done because we still do not have the cafeteria or the gym or my classroom,” Cutting said. “The specials [elective classes] are wandering the building right now.”

Centennial High School will be ready for its students to return to the buildings occupied by Columbia students for the last six years once a retrofit of the building, mostly bathrooms, is complete.