The
Grand Rapids Public Schools has broken ground on a new $2.3 million building for
Blandford School. The school (3143 Milo Ave. NW), located in the farm area of Blandford Nature Center, is a hands-on, place-based school where sixth graders study the natural surroundings and ecology of the school's location.
The new 7,000-square-foot facility will be LEED certified, says Ryan Huppert, school administrator, and will replace four 15-year-old "temporary" mobile classrooms in use currently. Sixty students attend the school, which conducts many of its classes outdoors in the hills and ponds of the nature center, and will use the proposed new learning laboratory to complete their research and experiments. The new building will be complete in January 2013.
The facility will also offer two classrooms, a multi-use common area for exhibits and large gatherings, and a demonstration kitchen shared by the school and the nature center.
"The school will have several permanent art installations involving students, staff and community residents, including a mosaic to honor founder Mary Jane Dockery," Huppert says.
Students raise chickens and sell the eggs, learn the ecology of the nature center and act as trail guides, and gather sap from the center's trees for use in the center's Sugarbush, Huppert says.
"Blandford School is an impactful program, an immersion experience with a family feel," he says. "It's a small number of students working together on big projects. This permanent building will help us ensure a lasting legacy of the program so it can serve students for decades."
The Wege Foundation was the lead donor with $1.5 million, and led the campaign to raise the $2.3 million needed. Huppert says GRPS provided $250,000; the rest was raised from private donors.
Architectural design:
Progressive AE
Construction manager:
Rockford Construction
Source: Ryan Huppert, Grand Rapids Public Schools
Writer: Deborah Johnson Wood, Development News Editor
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