Grand opening for new Main Elementary set for Thursday
♦ Speakers will include community members, former students and staff.
Those curious to see what the inside of the new Main Elementary School looks like will get their chance on Thursday from 4:30-6:30 p.m.
Rome City School officials will hold a ribbon cutting for the new school a day before city students head back to class.
Thursday’s speakers will include a former principal, teachers and students past and present, along with RCS officials and Rome Mayor Bill Collins. After the ribbon cutting, members of the community can tour the school and view commemorative bricks sold through the central office during the spring.
Superintendent Lou Byars announced the system’s plans for the new Main Elementary building and the consolidation of the North Rome elementary schools in February of 2017.
The new building was part of an education local option sales tax package that was approved in November, 2017. RCS was approved for up to $31.2 million for Main Elementary. The system has used between $13 million and $14 million on the new facility, designating the rest for other projects approved in the 2017 ELOST vote.
Main will hold all — or most — students from the North Rome area which includes students who once attended North Heights Elementary. The school was built to hold a larger capacity of students than the system’s other schools in order to accommodate future growth, according to Byars.
The Spider Webb Drive school has been around in name since Rome City Schools began in the late 1800s. The school’s original function during the era when the school system was segregated was to educate the system’s black students and eventually served students up to high school-age. Main High School closed in 1969, but the elementary school down the hill has stayed open.