FARMINGTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS : District prepares to open Folsom
Posted on Tuesday, July 8, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/66929/
The Farmington School District will hold a dedication and open house for the new Bob Folsom Elementary School from 2 to 4 p. m. Sunday.
The school is at 230 S. Grace Lane, which is west of Double Springs Road and U. S. 62 near the Farmington Fire Station. Grace Lane is a new road that was built for the school south of the highway.
Superintendent Ron Wright said school staff are in the process of moving into the new building.
“ That’s occurring this week. We’re putting together furniture and people are moving in, ” he said.
The district has also set up a Web page for the new school on its Web site, www. farmcards. org.
The new school was built by GAG Builders of Cabot.
Folsom Elementary was designed nearly identical to the district’s Williams Elemen- tary School, which opened in 2005. The main difference in design is that Folsom has larger rooms because of state standards for school room sizes that were enacted after Williams was built.
The school was built to house about 400 students. The new standards prompted the district to scale down the original size of the school, which was originally intended for 500 to 550 students.
“ It’s actually a larger building than Williams, but it will house less students, ” he said.
Stephanie Pinkerton, principal of the district’s Ledbetter Elementary School last year, will serve as the first principal at Folsom Elementary. Most of the staff is in place due to new hires or transfers from other schools in the district, Wright said.
With the school opening in August, it will provide a smoother transition to the opening day than Williams Elementary experienced, Wright said. Due to construction completion delays, Williams opened in February 2005 over a long weekend, a rare mid-year opening for a new school.
The addition of a third elementary school will also mean some changes in Farmington’s grade format and how school attendance is assigned. Williams had been on a K-2 format while Ledbetter served grades 3-4 in recent years.
Now, Williams and Folsom will serve grades K-3 while Ledbetter will continue to serve higher grades. The plan is for Ledbetter to house fourth grade only for the 2008-09 school year, and starting in 2009-2010, it will house fourth- and fifth-grade students.
Wright said the delay in adding fifth grade is due to some renovations planned to accommodate the fifth grade and its curriculum.
“ They need science labs, ” he said.
The new attendance zones for Folsom and Williams divide the district along a north-south boundary line. All students in those grades who live south of U. S. 62 on the south side of Rheas Mills Road will go to Folsom, while students who live on the north side of those roads will go to Williams Elementary.
Folsom is named after a longtime elementary school teacher who retired in 2004. Folsom’s immediate family members also work in education.
His wife, Joey, works as principal of Butterfield Trail Elementary School in Fayetteville and his son, Rusty, teaches at Root Elementary in Fayetteville. His daughter, Tabitha Christensen, teaches at Randall G. Lynch Middle School in Farmington.