Administrators at Ellsworth Elementary School expect the Kansas State Fire Marshal to be there Aug. 14 to green light a project that turned the school into a construction site over the summer. The next day, Aug. 15, students and teachers are set to start the 2019-20 school year.

Principal Patrick Schroeder and other district administrators can’t wait to see their reactions.

“I’m really happy for our kids, the teachers, just our community. When they drive by, they can see what we’re doing for our kids,” superintendent Dale Brungardt said.

This past week, Brungardt and Schroeder conducted a tour for the I-R of the new rooms that replace what one former principal/superintendent called a “cafa-gym-torium.”

The room that for years has been designated to serve those functions is now a modern gymnasium with natural light from the windows around the top of the space, two sets of double doors and a hardwood-looking floor to replace the green tile that had become almost legend in the school district.

“I had one person tell me falling down on that floor was like a rite of passage,” Schroeder said.

The other room, which adds space to the 50-some-year-old building, is a cafeteria with large windows and other amenities earlier generations of students and teachers never knew.

“The natural light is amazing,” Schroeder said of the three large windows that look out onto the elementary school playground.

“Just seeing the trees — it makes a big difference,” Brungardt added.

Before the new and renovated rooms, music and physical education classes, in particular, had to be arranged around lunch from 11 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. The “cafa-gym-torium” also served as an indoor play area when weather prevented students from going outside after lunch. Students ate on one side of the room and played on the other.

Then there were the jobs of setting up the cafeteria and tearing it down.

The new arrangement will mean less work for custodians. It also will give physical education and music an additional 30 minutes. And on days of bad weather — the school’s 250 students will eat in one room and be sent to the gymnasium to finish out the lunch period. Or the cafeteria is also large enough to accommodate more than one activity. Both rooms have dividers and LED lighting — some of the first in the district.

“The flexibility of the two rooms are going to have an impact we don’t even know yet,” Brungardt said.

A hallway connects the cafeteria addition to the existing school building. Because of the layout, three classrooms will have recessed windows and the lunch line will now be in the cafeteria instead of in the kitchen.

Brungardt said food will be sent over from the high school and finished in the elementary school kitchen if necessary. Otherwise, a hot cart will take the food directly into the cafeteria.

“It will be a work in progress — there will be different ideas,” Brungardt said of the new rooms.

Cost of the project is $1.45 million; however, Brungardt said the district is under budget with $1.359 million being spent to date. Left to do this past week were a few paint touchups and other odds and ends.

Students and parents will actually be introduced to the new rooms Monday at a back-to-school ice cream social. Students will deposit backpacks and meet their teachers.

“We definitely want to show this off and let the kids get excited about it,” Schroeder said of the changes.

Many will have memories of the old multi-purpose room and its slick green tile floor. So will their parents.

Meredith Vargo, a retired kindergarten teacher who still volunteers at the grade school, said high school students walked to the elementary school for lunch when she started teaching in 1963. That was when Ellsworth still had its old three-story high school and elementary school cooks served homemade rolls and other dishes.

“It’s was wonderful,” Vargo said of the food, which is now prepared at the high school by a contract vendor. “Some of us who had never eaten liver before learned to love it.”

The room also was used for school programs. There still is a stage at one end of the gymnasium, but Brungardt said it will continue to be used for classrooms.

School board members also have voiced excitement about the addition to the elementary school. They started talking about it this past September and now more than 10 months later ...

“Wow, what a neat thing,” said board member Liz Donley at a recent meeting.