UPDATE: Dr. Janet L. Young Elementary 30% Complete

CUSD Governing Board with Dr. Janet Young in a February 2019 . CONTRIBUTED BY CUSD

After announcing the planned construction of the Dr. Janet L. Young Elementary School back in February, CUSD officials have given a progress update for the new school set to open in August 2020.

“We are about 30% complete as of right now. The kindergarten building is completely framed and a couple other of the classroom buildings are starting to take shape,” Assistant Superintendent Denver Stairs said. “The upper-grade wing is framed and all of the foundations are poured.”

Slowly but surely, Young elementary is starting to take shape.

“The grass has been planted and all the playfills have been planted and we are getting ready to pour the streets in the next week,” Stairs said.

Located on Shields and Locan in the Clovis East boundaries, Young Elementary School will honor former Clovis Unified superintendent Dr. Janet L. Young and for Kacey Gibson, the new principal set to take over at Young Elementary, there wasn’t a better choice to grace the new elementary school.

“When we were looking for characteristics for the school, we definitely want to look for someone with integrity and somebody who is humble, so I think it was important too, that we did some surveys with our community,” Gibson said. “They were looking towards naming it after a person and someone who was influential in our district and a person who fit what the Clovis Unified foundation was and Janet Young was the perfect mold.”

The Clovis East community and the Clovis community as a whole can be excited as progress has been steady and as Stairs said, everything is “good to go” and the school could be finished earlier than expected, in late June.

That will allow the district and Gibson to move in and get everything set up for their inaugural school year in Fall 2020.

Like all CUSD elementary schools, it will fit about 750 students.

Look out for a groundbreaking event sometime in March 2020 where school district and community leadership will come together for a public event.

“We are excited at this point because now it actually looks like a school. So, when you drive by it it’s not just a construction site anymore and you can tell it is going to be a school,” Stairs said.