CLENDENIN, W.Va. — Eight years after the deadly 2016 flood that ravaged the town of Clendenin, the community will see the doors to its new gem of an elementary school open for this school year.
The new Clendenin Elementary School, which sits on Elk River Road, replaces the former Clendenin Elementary School that was ruined by the flood. The new and improved facility will move kids in the area out of the current portable classroom environment.
Andrew Crawford, Kanawha County’s facilities planning executive director, says it’s a relief to give this community the grade school it deserves.
“I can’t imagine what these families and children have been through,” Crawford said after giving Kanawha County Board of Education members a tour of the facility Monday afternoon. “Having to live in the portables for eight years, it’s got to be tough. It’s great to have them in their own building.”
Kanawha County Schools Superintendent Tom Williams says the school’s amenities and location will give kids the chance to learn while taking in their surroundings.
“This is absolutely a beautiful location,” Williams said. “Kids are going to be able to get outside and play. The art classes, the music classes, those types will be able to get outside. We have reading nooks all over the place where kids can sit and read.”
Williams added that the youth of Clendenin deserve the upgrade.
“The newness of the whole facility, these kids here deserve this,” Williams said.
Part of what will make Clendenin Elementary School new and improved will be the style of classroom each grade level will get.
The classrooms, called exploratoriums, will offer a new style of learning with entire grades being in one large room with multiple sections.
These classrooms all have their own restroom facilities and teacher’s office, as well as a main learning area where desks can go. These new exploratoriums are roughly two to three times larger than a typical elementary school classroom.
Williams says this new classroom dynamic will allow kids to work well with others.
“I think the exploratoriums are where kids can work separately but then they can also work in groups, that’s what industry tells us now, they need kids to be able to work in teams and get along well with others,” Williams said. “What better way to learn that than in elementary school?”
Crawford says the new classrooms are an ode to the past, but with much more space and opportunity.
“It’s kind of like an homage to the one-room schoolhouse,” Crawford said on the exploratorium classrooms. “Everybody in that grade level will be in that pod. There will be breakout areas for individual or smaller group sessions of learning, but it also creates a team cooperative learning experience that maybe we didn’t get growing up.”
Clendenin Elementary School will also feature a number of outdoor classrooms, and each indoor classroom will be equipped with a large window to see outside and a door that leads directly outside.
Williams also talked about the outside of the new building and what subtle messages it has.
“I think some of the features here draw on the oil and gas industry that is in Clendenin,” Williams said. “The things that look like the oil derricks around and has been incorporated in part of the structure, I think really sends a message back to the community that, we’re here to stay.”
A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the brand-new Clendenin Elementary School is set for August 15.