Bel Pre ES to get new gymnasium

Project expected to be complete for the 2007-2008 school year

Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2006

Bel Pre Elementary School will be one of four elementary schools to receive a new gymnasium scheduled to open August 2007.

After years of using the cafeteria for physical education, assembly programs and lunches, Principal Carmen van Zutphen will be happy to get a facility for her students to get the most out of their physical education, while leaving the cafeteria open for ‘‘all-purpose” events.

‘‘We know it’s critical to the academic process to have a healthy body,” she said. ‘‘After all these years, opening the new gym will definitely enhance [the school].”

The county Board of Education approved a bid Sept. 14 by Henley Construction Company for gymnasium projects at both Bel Pre and Burning Tree elementary schools for about $4 million.

Other schools expected to have gymnasium additions include Thurgood Marshall and Fairland elementary schools, and the new downcounty consortium school No. 28 — the former Arcola Elementary School, which is scheduled to open August 2007.

The 6,716-square-foot Bel Pre addition will include a 3,700-square-foot gym, an entrance lobby with bathrooms, a physical education office, three indoor areas and an outdoor storage area.

The gymnasium will have six basketball hoops with multiple court arrangements, volleyball pole anchors, four climbing ropes and pull-up bars. The walls also will include safety pads and painted sound blocks.

The school, built in 1968, is one of 23 elementary schools without gymnasiums. Construction is expected to start this month and the gymnasium is expected to be ready for the 2007-2008 school year. Project planner Adrienne L. Karamihas of Montgomery County Public Schools said construction would occur throughout this school year but construction workers will have no contact with students or faculty.

Van Zutphen said she was told that some parking might be lost during construction because equipment will have to take up spaces.

Gymnasium additions are one of the many ways schools officials hope to enhance the quality of public school education in Montgomery County. Modernization projects have been ongoing across the county with school improvements, expansions and even a new high school. Bel Pre is scheduled for modernization around 2010.

Karamihas said that while Bel Pre is on the list of schools in need of modernization for the future, the gym projects were separate and included many schools that do not need modernization.

‘‘[Modernization and the gymnasium additions] are ... from separate pots of money, [which] both the Board of Education and County Council believe need to be addressed,” Karamihas said.

One of the main reasons for modernization is overcrowding. Bel Pre, which serves kindergarten through second grade, currently has 488 students, but the capacity is only 318. There are eight portable classrooms for the extra students.