Community Corner

Staff and Students to Return to CJ Morris in Early August

CJ Morris Elementary School teachers and staff will get to move back to their permanent home in time for the start of the new school year in August. 

The estimated $5 million modernization project is nearing completion at the Walnut school, with crews working on landscaping and installing ceiling grids, lights, and the hearing and air conditioning system, according to the Walnut Valley Unified School District’s newsletter.

“We’ve been tracking the construction progress all year and are overjoyed knowing that we’re in the home stretch,” teacher Tara Noelte said in the newsletter. 

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Principal Donna Hunter said she too is excited about the changes.

“Our new school features state-of-the-art classrooms and technology,” Hunter said about the modernized Walnut campus slated to re-open in the fall. 

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Faculty, staff, and students spent the last school year in temporary digs at the nearby Ron Hockwalt Academies campus.

In March 2012, the Walnut Valley Board of Trustees approved the relocation plan, which cleared the way for the remodel of the nearly 30-year-old campus. 

At that time, Jeff Bloedorn, director of maintenance, operations, transportation, and facilities, said that the district was to receive $2 million from the state and pay for the remainder of the project with funds from bond measures S and Y.

In 2007, voters approved the authorization of up to $64.6 million in general obligation bonds for Measure S and up to $15.2 million for Measure Y.   Measure S was designated for projects to help maintain the district’s academic standards. Measure Y funds can only be used for projects related to co-curricular programs.

Crews began working on the modernization in June 2012, just after school was dismissed for the summer break.  The plan called for the whole school to be gutted.

CJ Morris is an open-concept school, meaning it is really just one large building with partitions separating the classrooms.  The relocation will enable the project to move faster, Bloedorn said last year. 

“It saves us money and it saves us time,” he said, adding that the move would shave five or six months off of the project. 


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