Weld RE-4 holds groundbreaking ceremonies for two new elementary schools in Windsor
WINDSOR — With its elementary schools literally bursting at the seams following some of the fastest population growth in the country, the public school district serving Windsor and Severance is celebrating the start of construction of two new elementary schools this week.
A student choir from Range View Elementary School was on hand Tuesday evening for the ceremonial groundbreaking of construction of Peakview Elementary School, along with the mayors of Severance and Windsor, Weld RE-4 School District superintendent Michelle Scallon, members of the school board and about 80 other community members.
A similar groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for 5 p.m. Thursday at the site of RainDance Elementary School, 2015 Covered Bridge Pkwy., in the subdivision of the same name.
Peakview and RainDance are both scheduled to open in fall 2024. Construction on both began last month.
Why are two new elementary schools necessary?
Windsor’s population has increased by 120% since 2010, growing from 18,846 residents to an estimated 41,413 in 2023, based on U.S. Bureau of the Census data. Severance has grown by 335% in that same time frame, from 3,204 residents in 2010 to an estimated 13,947 in 2023.
The Windsor-Severance (Weld RE-4) School District also includes west Greeley, which has also seen rapid population growth during that time.
The district currently has three traditional elementary schools serving more than 700 students apiece in preschool through fifth grade:
Grandview, which opened in 2003
Range View, which opened in 2010
Skyview, which opened in 1982
Two other grade schools in the district serve the same student population but have fewer grade levels than a traditional elementary school:
Tozer, which opened in 1961, has 501 preschool through second-grade students
Mountain View, which opened in 1979, has 434 third- through fifth-grade students
(Data from Colorado Department of Education's 2022 October enrollment count)
The two new schools will “reduce the overcrowding in some of our other schools,” Scallon said. “That’s been a big issue the last few years. And just getting our class sizes smaller. It’s going to be huge for both the Severance and Windsor communities and west Greeley.”
Although Weld RE-4 has built both a middle school and high school in Severance to accommodate that community’s growth, the new and existing elementary schools are all located within Windsor’s town limits.
Where are the new schools located?
RainDance is being built in southeast Windsor in the subdivision of the same name. It’s located west of the Water Valley subdivision, east of Colorado Boulevard and north of Crossroads Boulevard. It will take some of the pressure off Tozer, Mountain View and Skyview, by pulling some students from each of those schools.
Peakview, 550 Sundance Drive, is being built in northeast Windsor, east of Windsor Lake and Weld County Road 19 and north of Colorado Highway 392. It will draw many students now attending Range View, district officials said, including many living in Severance and west Greeley.
Boundaries for the new schools have not yet been drawn.
“We want neighborhood schools, where kids can walk to school, where we know everybody’s faces,” Scallon said while thanking the community for its support.
Where did the money to build the new schools come from?
After rejecting a 2021 bond for construction projects that would have included the two new schools, voters in the Weld RE-4 School District approved a $271 million bond measure and $5 million mill levy last November to provide the necessary funding.
Construction of the two new elementary schools, estimated to cost $40 million apiece, was included in the bond, as was money for construction of a new Windsor middle school, additions to Severance middle and high schools, a new career and technical education center at Severance High, expansion of Windsor Charter Academy and repair and replacements at schools across the district. Money for staffing at the new schools was included in the $5 million mill levy.
Russ Smart, president of the Weld RE-4 School District Board of Education, said the district did a poor job of communicating the way school financing and construction costs are paid for to voters in 2021, leading to the defeat of that bond. This time around, he said, the district was more transparent about the need to build new schools, and the bond passed by a sizeable margin — 55.4% to 44.6%.
A bond oversight committee was created to ensure accountability for the use of the bond measure funds.
“It’s a need, and we have to keep up with the growth,” Smart said. “Every student needs a seat.”
What will the new schools look like?
Peakview and RainDance are being built to similar specifications following a district design team’s work with architects to develop a districtwide prototype, the district wrote in an informational page on its website.
Each building will be 75,000 square feet and designed to accommodate 600 students in kindergarten through fifth grade and 64 preschoolers. Both will be two stories tall, with central common spaces and fitness/wellness, music/stage and cafeterias in close proximity to one another to promote after-hour use and be used as central gathering locations for students.
The DLRGroup’s architects designed the buildings, and Adolfson & Peterson is the construction manager and general contractor.
Who will be the principals of the new schools?
Principals for both new schools have already been selected and will begin their new roles July 10, spending the 2023-24 school year involved in extensive community engagement to prepare for the openings, district officials said in a news release posted on its website in early March.
Sheila Bowman will be the first principal at RainDance Elementary. She is currently the principal for the Greeley-Evans School District Online Academy and was named that district’s administrator of the year in 2022. She previously worked in the Windsor-Severance school district as principal of the Inspire4 Online School, an instructional technologist and fifth-grade and enrichment teacher.
Bowman has a bachelor’s degree in human development and family studies from Colorado State University, and a master’s degree in educational leadership/policy studies from the University of Northern Colorado.
Shelly Butcher, principal at Tozer Primary School since 2014, will be the first principal at Peakview Elementary. She previously served as an assistant principal at Rice Elementary in Wellington and as an elementary school teacher at various grade levels in the Poudre School District.
Butcher has a bachelor’s degree in human development and family studies from CSU, a master’s degree in education from Regis University and an educational leadership endorsement from Western Governors University.
“I’m honored to be the first principal of this school that’s going to sit on this site,” Butcher told those gathered Tuesday evening for the Peakview groundbreaking ceremony. “I look around, and I see a lot of dirt and some gravel and some big machines. But just think, in a year we’re going to be almost ready to open, and that is so exciting.”
Editor's note: This story has been updated since its original publication to correct the percentages of population growth in Windsor and Severance since 2010 and to reflect that the 2022 bond measure included funding to build an additional new middle school in Windsor that will be in addition to the existing facility, not to replace it as the 2021 bond measure had called for.
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, twitter.com/KellyLyell or facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: New Windsor elementary schools: Weld RE-4 breaks ground on 2 buildings
