JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Northwest Jacksonville school that was described as dilapidated is in the middle of a major renovation.
And it’s not just a face-lift.
Crews completely demolished Rutledge Pearson Elementary and are rebuilding it from the ground up. When it’s done, the district said it will be the most modern school in the county.
Crews on Thursday celebrated that the school in the Sherwood Forest neighborhood has been completely roofed. When it’s all done, it will be unrecognizable from what stood there before.
The $40 million project is quickly moving along and includes things like a new second floor and new play fields.
The school will serve 900 students and combine Henry Kite, Martin Luther King Jr., and Rutledge Pearson elementary schools into one large state-of-the-art campus.
MORE: DCPS moves forward with 4 transformational new school projects funded by half-cent sales tax
“Not just school infrastructure, the walls, the cafeteria area being especially reinforced as a hurricane shelter which is desperately needed for this part of town and the county. It’s also going to have the most modern teaching technology, learning walls, speaker systems, sound systems, interactive systems, high internet capability, wireless capability. It will be, really, a very modern school facility. Probably the most modern we will have in Duval County,” said Paul Soares, DCPS Assistant Superintendent of Operations.
Rutledge Pearson Elementary is one of 28 transformative replacement or new school projects across the city funded by the half-cent sales tax that was approved by Duval County voters in 2020.
The tax money will go toward more than $1.5 billion worth of outstanding maintenance projects, which the district said were put off due to state funding cuts.
If you want to see how the district is using the sales tax money to revitalize schools, and more details about the projects in your area, click here.