MILTON, Del. - Some final touches are being made to Milton Elementary School, just days ahead of the new school year. Making back to school more exciting and giving kids something extra to look forward to.
Freshly painted hallways and reconstructed classrooms, ready to be filled with kids eager to learn.
"We've got all the desks socially distanced apart, we're able to provide so much more space so that we can divide the cafeteria up so that they can be distanced. There was no chance that would work at the old Milton Elementary School," said Brian Bassett, the Director for Capital Projects at Cape Henlopen School District.
Bassett says this change has been a long time coming.
"You're dealing with buildings that didn't have fire suppression or its wiring that's from 1932 or even if it was renovated since then," said Bassett.
The 35 million dollar project was approved as part of a referendum back in 2016.
And students and staff were placed at the former H.O. Brittingham building.
But that won't be the case anymore with the completion of the 18-month long project.
"The building is absolutely beautiful," said Clara Conn, the new MES principal.
She says her goal is to keep the back-to-school excitement going.
"I'm excited to have a building full of all students and we're going to make it as safe as possible. We have students that haven't been at school for the last 18 months. So we have to support them there as well," added Conn.
Keeping Milton's history alive and elements of the old version of the school, while adding latest technology in and out of the classroom.
"Instead of just keeping the front of the building we also kept the gymnasium so at one point we tore down all the walls around the gymnasium so we had it freestanding and then we had to build and mix that to the old building so definitely a challenging construction project," explained Bassett.
About 500 students are expected to walk through the doors next Wednesday for the official start of the 2021-2022 school year.