AURORA | Aurora Public Schools broke ground this week on a P-8 school on the site of the former Lyn Knoll Elementary, which closed last year.
This is the second P-8 the district is beginning to build in two weeks, following a groundbreaking last week for a P-8 in the Aurora Highlands community.
The yet to be named school will serve students in preschool through 8th grade, and is scheduled to open for the 2023-2024 school year. It will serve students in the Del Mar neighborhood of western Aurora, and is the first APS school in that neighborhood to be built in 60 years, according to a Thursday news release from the district.
A boundary process will take place in the next several months to determine where exactly students will be zoned from to attend the new school, and the district will also seek community input on the school’s name, colors and mascot, the release said.
It will be led by Jennifer Murtha, who was formerly the principal of nearby Lansing Elementary.
“We want every student to be excited to come to school and to take advantage of the amazing opportunities with this new space,” Murtha said in the release.
Lyn Knoll was one of the schools recommended for closure as part of Blueprint APS, the district’s ongoing facilities plan. The building was torn down and will be replaced with a three-story facility with a STEM lab and an art room, according to the release.
At the groundbreaking on Thursday afternoon, APS superintendent Rico Munn and board president Debbie Gerkin delivered remarks while future students and their families signed their names on a steel beam being used in the school’s construction.
This P-8 and the one in the Highlands are both being built with money from a $300 million bond approved by voters in 2016.
I am so, so tired of the Sentinel, an ostensible news outlet, publishing APS press releases and calling it news.