The Mineral County (West Virginia) district has opened a new elementary school in Ridgeley that replaces three former campuses.
The Cumberland Times-News reports that the nearly $30 million Frankfort Elementary School is an 82,000 square-foot facility that merges three former Mineral County schools — Fort Ashby Primary, Wiley Ford Primary and Frankfort Intermediate. The new school is adjacent to Frankfort Middle School.
Frankfort Elementary accommodates students from prekindergarten through fourth grade. The three previous primary schools in the county had no more than 300 students each; the new school has over 700.
The school has a regulation-sized gym capable of hosting basketball games for middle and high schools in the county, and has a modern multimedia center rather than a library.
The building also has a STEM lab for hands-on learning, which the students will visit once per week. The school will also have its own news station that will broadcast every week, led by students.
The state's School Building Authority provided about $26 million for the project; the school district covered the remainder of the cost.
