As 9 a.m. approached on Tuesday, school buses arrived outside Walnut Grove Elementary School, the newest school in Johnson County.
Principal Brian Proctor met with his teachers and instructional assistants in the lobby as they prepared for the first day of the academic year in a building unlike any they had worked at before.
Center Grove Community Schools opened the new school to accommodate its ever-growing student body. The number of students at Center Grove schools grew by more than 1,500 between the 2001-02 and 2018-19 school years, school officials said.
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One of the standout aspects of the school is the six acres of solar panels that will make up about a third of the school’s electricity. The environmental friendliness of Walnut Grove is one of its greatest advantages, said Debra Oakes, a first-grade teacher.
Outside, the school also features a monarch butterfly sanctuary, an area for bee pollination and a frog pond. Rainwater collected on the roof drains down to the plants at ground level.
“I love the environmental aspect. There’s a lot outside. There’s an open feel about the whole school,” Oakes said.
The school’s design also contributes to that open feeling. The classrooms have hallway-facing walls with retractable glass. The wall between the gymnasium and cafeteria can be opened or shifted to create impromptu performance spaces. The lobby features a library with shelves of books and a walnut tree sculpture with leaves illuminated by colored lights. A few steps away is a learning riser staircase that can hold 115 students for guest speakers or grade-wide presentations.
The design intrigues Jon Stropes, a teaching assistant for first- through fifth-grade students who recently transitioned from a career in graphic design.
“I like how open it is,” Stropes said. “The whole school design is all about functionality. The riser staircase and the library are the first things you see. All the grade levels have their own area that can open up into collaborative spaces.”
Angie Teed, who is not only Center Grove’s technology integration specialist but also the parent of a kindergartner and fourth grader at Walnut Grove, likes the technology and aesthetics of the school, she said.
“I like the efficiency of it — the solar panels, the bee hives. Everything is technologically advanced. Everything seems new and exciting. There’s green (tree vines) for kindergarten and first grade. Third and fourth grade is a different color. All the branches lead back to the roots of the walnut tree,” Teed said.
Those branches, which are actually tree vines made to be part of the school’s design, lead from the tree sculpture to different classrooms. Green vines lead to kindergarten and first-grade classrooms, red leads to second- and third-grade classrooms and yellow leads to fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms.
The excitement about the new school is shared by Teed’s daughter, Caroline, who enjoys the circular chairs and artificial grass seats in the lobby area, she said.
After two months off, bus driver Melanie Inch could feel the excitement from students as they got ready to go back to school, she said.
This time, it’s in a school none of them had been to before the school’s open house last week.
“The kids are excited but well-behaved. It’s a typical first day,” Inch said. “The school is beautiful inside and out.”
For Proctor, who helped design the school, the end of the first day meant some relief after a year-long process to bring the school to fruition. The process included looking at how students could move between various parts of the building, analyzing how certain spaces, such as the cafeteria and gymnasium, could serve multiple purposes and building a school that students would feel engaged and ready to learn in, he said.
“It’s been an emotional rollercoaster,” Proctor said. “We’re coming down from finalizing construction to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and opening a school for 600 kids. After that, it’ll be back to the normal routine.”
