The third and final phase of the $12 million Mooseheart School Renovation Project is underway. Included in this phase are a new entrance to the school, a new gymnasium and an air rifle range for the school’s Naval Junior Reserve Officer’s Training Corps students. (Mooseheart photo)

The sounds of teaching and learning inside Mooseheart’s school building combine this year with the sounds of real construction equipment as the 2015-16 school year takes shape.

School began for the campus’ 210 schoolchildren on Aug. 19 with the usual greetings from staff, and hugs from students – many of who have not seen each other since the last school year ended in May.

“The first day of school is a renewal,” Mooseheart Superintendent of Education Dr. Jeff Szymczak said. “I think sometimes, as adults, we forget that this is the only time our third graders will be in third grade, and we want them to make the most of it.”

Some opening day patterns are timeless – children greeting teachers, finding lockers, being assigned seats and receiving their first instructions of the school year. However, changes at Mooseheart mean the educational experience is also transforming for the better.

The three-phase, $12 million Mooseheart School Renovation project is nearing its final stage. The second phase involved an infrastructure overhaul both at the school and on-campus, and included high-speed internet connections and new computer equipment. That phase was fully-implemented by the end of the first semester last year.

“It was unintentional, but we were putting our kids at a disadvantage when they went to college with students who had been working on devices and with technology all along, and our kids had not been,” Szymczak said.

Construction has begun on the final phase of the renovation project, which will include a new entrance, school offices. a new gymnasium and locker rooms, an air rifle range for the school’s Naval Junior Reserve Officer’s Training Corps (NJROTC) students and practice rooms for the school’s band room. The new gym will have seating for 400 and Szymczak said he anticipates uses to include NJROTC functions, concerts and some athletic practices and contests.

“With seating for 200 on the floor, it’s really big enough for any activity we would have except for graduation,” Szymczak said. “That doesn’t mean that we’re not using the fieldhouse any more. But for practices before events such as the (NJROTC) Change of Command, it means we don’t have to spend 10-15 minutes marching everyone to the fieldhouse and then the same amount of time returning. This gains us instructional minutes.”

Szymczak said he hoped the final phase of construction would be done and the facilities in full use by spring 2016.

In Mooseheart’s Western-themed “Back to School Bash,” the campus’ elementary and middle school students received backpacks full of school supplies from employees at the Geneva office of publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This marks the fourth straight year Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has provided backpacks and supplies for Mooseheart children.

— Construction sounds combine with bells at Mooseheart School —