BPS Hosts Groundbreaking for New School
By KAYLEY FORSHEY
Contributing Writer
MOVING DIRT: The Bixby Public School Board of Education broke ground on the new location for West Elementary and Intermediate schools with the help of a few Bixby public school students.
The rainy weather didn’t dampen spirits as Bixby Public Schools broke ground for its new Bixby West Elementary and Intermediate schools’ location on Sept. 26. illowbrook, construction manager for the project, Board of Education Members, Bixby parents and many other community members gathered in front of three large tractors and a mound of dirt to celebrate the groundbreaking.
Bixby Public Schools Superintendent Rob Miller thanked the community and welcomed the crowd to the school’s new location on 151st and Harvard. The project was approved by voters in 2016 and the school is expected to open in the fall of 2020.
“It is important to note that everything that the City of Bixby does that’s positive is beneficial to our public school system, and then the things that we do are beneficial to the city. So this truly is a collective effort to make this community the best community we possibly can,” said Miller.
According to Miller, the school will contain state-of-the-art technology and modern safety enhancements. However, those amenities are not the heart of the project, the students are.
“When this new building opens its doors in August 2020, it will serve as further evidence that we live in a community that believes education is vitally important and provides opportunities for all children in Bixby,” said Miller. “It will symbolize a community that understands that investing in education is a shared responsibility, and that we do it willingly for our children and for our future.”
This groundbreaking is only the beginning of a long project that will ultimately enrich and grow the Bixby community. A few Bixby students attended and even helped move some dirt with the groundbreaking.
“As you’ll soon discover, this location is going to be very busy over the next 22 months. This bulldozer behind me and other heavy equipment like it will begin moving huge volumes of dirt from one place to another, tens of thousands of cubic feet of concrete will be poured in this location, hundreds of steel beams will be erected into place, hundreds of thousands of man hours will be spent creating a building that will serve generations in Bixby children. A school building of which we hope our community will be immensely proud,” said Miller.
Updated 10-16-2018
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