VERO BEACH – A few hundred Little Indians from Vero Beach Elementary School clutched their golden spoons and readied for digging. At the same time, members of the Indian River County School Board and Principal Bonnie Swanson grabbed their shovels and donned hard hats.
“Dig that dirt!” Principal Swanson cried as they all broke ground on what will be Vero Beach Elementary School’s new campus.
“We are growing our green dream and planting seed for our future,” Principal Swanson said prior to the ground-breaking.
For the last six years, the School District has worked to resolve the structural issues that have been plaguing the campus. Such issues include over-crowding and deteriorating conditions of the buildings themselves.
Facilities Director Susan Olson told the crowd Tuesday morning that Principal Swanson had invited her over to the school to show her the sagging soffits around the buildings.
“You don’t need new soffits,” Olson recalled telling the principal. “You need a new school!”
Olson added that Principal Swanson then looked at her as though she had grown another head.
The new $20 million campus will be environmentally conscious and laid out more efficiently. It will also serve as a prototype for future elementary schools.
Students are expected to move into the new building at the start of the 2012-13 school year.
Once the new campus is built, the current campus is expected to be demolished.