The former Beaverdam Elementary School has been repurposed as the new Elbert County Primary School as it gets ready to open its doors to students for the first time in 12 years Aug. 1.
“Just based on the turnout at our ribbon cutting ceremony, that school meant a whole lot to a lot of people. So it’s really neat to be able to bring that school back to life,” Superintendent Robert Wheeler said July 25. “It’s also pretty significant that we were able to reopen that school instead of building a new school that saved the county and the taxpayers a good chunk of money. We’re really proud of the way it turned out and we look forward to many good years of teaching and learning.”
The Elbert County School District hosted a ribbon cutting July 19 officially marking the completion of a renovation process that dates back to 2019.
The vision for the school to reopen came from former Superintendent and current Human Resources and Operations Specialist Jon Jarvis, who began his teaching career at the former Beaverdam Elementary School.
“I spent nine years there and that school was a very loving, caring school,” Jarvis said. “It was always a great, loving environment. Some of my best years were teaching fifth grade at Beaverdam. I loved the kids, I have some life-long relationships from the parents I worked with and the students I had the pleasure of teaching. There’s a couple of teachers there now that were some of my students who went through Beaverdam who are excited to go back.”
Because of his love for Beaverdam, coupled with the need for more classrooms within the district, Jarvis spearheaded the effort to renovate the building.
The Board of Education (BOE) began looking at what to do with the district’s facilities in 2019 when the board office was potentially going to move into a new building.
The BOE first presented four plans to the public in August of 2020 that involved renovating the former Beaverdam Elementary School in order to open space in Falling Creek Elementary for the board office.
Plan A would move kindergarten through second grade to Beaverdam, Plan A-Alternate would move Pre-K through second grade to Beaverdam and shut down Paul J. Blackwell Learning Center, Plan B would move kindergarten through first grade to Beaverdam and Plan B-Alternate would move Pre-K through first grade to Beaverdam and also shut down Paul J. Blackwell Learning Center.
After receiving no feedback on Plan B or Plan B-Alternate, the BOE narrowed the decision down to just Plan A and Plan A-Alternate, before eventually choosing Plan A in November of 2020.
The plan called for 27 classrooms to be added to Beaverdam and eventually a guaranteed maximum price of $10.3 million was given by Carroll Daniel Construction in April of 2022.
“We needed to do something. Our schools just weren’t big enough and we knew we wanted to move fifth grade and we had that building just sitting there,” Jarvis said. “I had the company come in and look at it and they felt like the bones of it were durable and renovation could take place – they had renovated Beaverdam in 2004 – they had added on then and renovated so we knew there was a good structure there and that started the process of working with the board at the time and there’s a group of parents that I talked to about their thoughts. We had a group of community stakeholders who were coming to meetings at that time and we asked them what they wanted to see, so we actually got some community input.”
Jarvis said that in addition to the recent renovations to the building, 4-H was using the building and, with the help of the county, were able to maintain the building.
“They kept the air running and they were using a lot of it for projects, we would have meetings there, we had community meetings there in the cafeteria, so the building just didn’t sit vacant,” Jarvis said. “Some of it we used for storage, but 4-H using it and the commissioners – they took care of the property, they paid the power bill, they took care of it for all of those years and that helped us tremendously.”
In addition to 4-H, the building was also used by the Elbert County Extension Office and hosted Keep Elbert County Beautiful meetings.
When it came time to make a decision on what kind of renovations were in order for the building, Jarvis said the district’s vision for the school started to come into view.
“Ultimately we knew we wanted brand new classrooms for kindergarten and first grade. We wanted to put a bathroom in every room for kindergarten and first grade. So we just decided, we looked at the land and what it would take and the maximum number of homerooms we have for any grade level is 12, so we decided that we wanted 12 classrooms in kindergarten and 12 classrooms for first and we looked at how we could do it on the piece of property we had and you start talking about things and the architects start drawing things and we went through two or three months of revisions.”
An example of one of the revisions was the special needs playground which sits in a courtyard area in the center of the school.
“That came about because where we had to put the new wing or the new classrooms…we had that middle area and we couldn’t get lawnmowers in there to cut grass so we knew we were going to have to pave it and through talking and all with the group we came up with a special needs playground there,” Jarvis said. “Our special needs students have never had their own playground that was adapted to them. Friends Helping Friends has always helped and done some things for our students – some needs, but as far as the district paying for a playground that was dedicated for special needs students, we’ve never done it so we’re very thankful that we were able to do this.”
Jarvis said the renovations also included a music room and an art room that were designed as music and art rooms – not as regular classrooms that were later adapted to fit their purpose. He said things like a larger sink, shelving and storage areas in the art room or carpet and more space in the music room for music-related movement make instruction in those rooms significantly easier.
“Our art teacher and music teacher are just ecstatic with what they have because one of them had a regular classroom and the other one was teaching music in a trailer and they both have rooms that are designed for that purpose,” Jarvis said.
The renovations also added “about 20 feet” to the lunchroom to make sure students were not cramped while eating.
On the outside of the building, Jarvis said the district added “some of the best playground equipment you can buy.”
“We no longer have bark – we have astroturf – and we have three nice playgrounds for the kids to play on. We wanted the best stuff for our kids and some that would last. It meets safety measures for kids to play on and we feel like we have three big playgrounds for three grade levels so it will help them with playing and things like that,” Jarvis said.
In addition to the playgrounds, an outdoor classroom was added behind the school with musical instruments, such as drums or a big xylophone, installed.
“There’s also a nature trail down behind the school that Elaine Easom Eavenson spearheaded when we started teaching there in 1994,” Jarvis said. “We hope to revitalize the nature trail that a lot of people put a lot of work in back when Beaverdam was opened.”
While the renovations brought a lot of change to the school, Jarvis said there were a few things that the district made sure they kept the same during the renovation process.
Three plaques, recognizing former administrators E.F. Adams, Phillip Hart and Pam Eaves still hang on the walls just beyond the entryway and a granite beaver that used to guard the front entrance remains on the premises, even though he was moved to a side entrance.
Jarvis said through the whole process, he’s happy that the renovations were able to be done responsibly and save the taxpayers money.
“A school of that size, if we had built it from scratch, the construction company projected it would have cost around $34 million. After getting our state funding back we have $9.8 million of local money in what we did there,” Jarvis said. “If we didn’t have that available, we were going to have to look long and hard on a new facility or renovating the other school, but it’s very hard to renovate while you’re having school and as we know that took a year to do – so we were fortunate to have this option. We do believe that it was time and that we had to do something with our primary school.”