New school passes

By RONNIEBLAIR | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 22, 2012

NEW PORT RICHEY - When school resumes in August, anytime Principal Ken Miesner wants to make sure his students are where they are supposed to be it might not be that difficult.

He can just step out onto a second-story balcony overlooking a courtyard between two classroom buildings at Richey Elementary.

Most of the student comings-and-goings will be right before his eyes.

That view wasn't a possibility in the past. But then, the 2012-13 version of Richey Elementary won't be the same school the community has known since the 1950s.

Richey is undergoing a $15.6 million reconstruction. The project began after the school district conducted a study to determine whether it was more cost effective to renovate the aging school or tear it down and start over.

The verdict: Tear it down.

That meant this past school year, much of the campus was blocked off to students and teachers. They remained in the old Richey Elementary while construction workers from Cutler Associates Inc. of Tampa were building the new Richey Elementary on the other side of a fence.

John Petrashek, the school district's director of new construction, said it can be difficult, but worth it, for a principal to give up most of the campus over the course of a school year while construction crews swarm the place.

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New school passes