District to break ground on HSJA

The Hot Springs School District will break ground at 2 p.m. Monday on the new building that will house Hot Springs Junior Academy, which the district’s superintendent says represents a sign of continued transition and progress.

The groundbreaking will be held on the campus of Hot Springs World Class High School on Emory Street.

“When this building is completed, which we expect it to be completed in the spring of 2020, that fall we will do all of our transitioning shifts,” Stephanie Nehus said. “When that new building opens, it’s going to go to seventh through ninth grade, our high school’s going to go to

10th through 12th because we’re busting at the seams right now in that building.”

Nehus said all of the elementary schools will be kindergarten through sixth grades when the transitions take place. The district’s intent, she said, is to minimize the transitions and maximize resources for efficiency.

“We share a lot of staff and obviously transportation costs having buildings spread out,” she said. “We’re really going to be able to have some savings on that, so we’re excited about that. And research shows that students do better when they have an opportunity to build relationships and have fewer transitions academically.”

When the millage was approved in September of 2016, Nehus said the district had two major building projects — a new building for Langston Magnet School and the new Hot Springs Junior Academy, which will include a new 2,200-seat multipurpose arena and 1,000-seat auditorium.

“We’re real hopeful to be a service to the community with that space, as well,” she said.

The Hot Springs School Board met for a special meeting March 26 to approve the bids for the junior academy project.

“We have a construction management company, which is Hill & Cox, that we hired back in the beginning and they work through this process with us, but then they have to solidify all of the bids and do all of that,” Nehus said. “Monday was the special meeting so that the board could approve the final maximum guaranteed price, and that technically puts us under contract and the building can start.

“They plan to be moving ground full force by Monday. They got the fence up this past Monday, and I saw some equipment is being kind of moved over so they’re in process.”

Nehus said Monday’s groundbreaking ceremony will be similar to one they held for Langston Magnet School, noting, “It’s just to build the excitement, not only within our district but within our community, as well.”

The junior academy will be located at the east end of the high school, and Nehus said the district is reaching out to the mayor, The Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce Red Coat Ambassadors, and the community to attend the groundbreaking.

“Of course we will have our construction folks, our board members, some of the high school band and cheerleaders,” she said. “And then we’re bringing students in fourth, fifth and sixth grades over because they will be the first students that will inhabit that building as seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders,” she said.

“There’s a lot coming, and it’s really exciting,” she said. “You probably will see some construction this summer at the current Oaklawn school because that was one of our smaller projects. We’ve got three smaller projects that are going to take place now that the two big ones are in. Again this was all part of the millage and things we promised our community.”

The driveway at Oaklawn Visual and Performing Arts Magnet will be redesigned to extend the drop-off and pickup space, to ultimately help with traffic, Nehus said.

“Then we’ll be working on the new facade of the current Hot Springs Junior Academy,” she said. “We’re planning to do some updates of that exterior, front entrance. And then also the high school library will be remodeled, renovated. We’re meeting next week to kind of start looking at the design of that. Those two (projects) more than likely won’t happen this summer, probably another year, but those were the other little projects that we still have left to do.”

Once the projects are complete, there will be some location shifts for the elementary schools, she said.

“The current junior academy now will become the visual and performing arts magnet,” Nehus said. “When we do all of that transitioning, we’re shifting. Of course, our high school and our junior academy will now be side by side when the new building is built, so (grades) seven to 12, that’s what we’re going to call one ‘super campus.’

“And then our current Oaklawn Visual and Performing Arts Magnet will move to the junior academy building. They are our largest elementary school so they are going to need more space when we add two grade levels. Langston will have its new building which actually will be complete by the ‘19-20 school year. It should be completed by next spring.”

Gardner STEM Magnet, she said, will move to the current Oaklawn Magnet building, “and it actually will become Oaklawn STEM.” The district will rename the visual and performing arts school when it moves to its new building.

“What that will look like then is we’ll have Park and Oaklawn side by side so that will be a ‘super campus’ with two elementaries, Gardner will be on Oaklawn Street, and then Langston will be over on Silver Street,” Nehus said.

Nehus said the future of the current Gardner school building is also being discussed.

“The current Gardner building, we are already in conversations with National Park College, Henderson State University, the six other school districts in Garland County, to do some sort of career, technical, vocational center there possibly,” she said. “We’re hoping to partner with business and industry in our community to train up some students to meet the needs of the community. That’s a conversation for that building. There’s going to be a lot of moving and shifting and some changes, but that is the plan.”

All of this is to make good on the promises the district made to the community when the millage was passed, she said.

“I can’t say it enough, but it has been our goal — and I feel like we’re doing a great job of it — of making sure we are doing everything we promised the voters who supported us,” Nehus said.

“We appreciate that community support. We are so thankful for it. Our students are going to benefit. Our community is going to benefit. But we are fulfilling everything we promised the voters and I have to say we are pleased as can be … it’s really impressive to do two major building projects and both of them come under budget. We are being responsible with the support and the money that we have generated from the millage.”