Summer break means busy building construction for some Butler, Warren county schools

Summertime isn’t break time for some area schools as millions of dollars in new construction expands existing schools at private and public schools in Butler and Warren counties. Marshall High School in Middletown is more than doubling its number of learning labs while Rosa Parks Elementary in the public city schools is also expanding. Badin High School in Hamilton is adding to its campus and Carlisle Schools in Warren County will open a new, pre-K-12 school in early September. (File And Provided Photos/Journal-News)

Summertime isn’t break time for some area schools as millions of dollars in new construction expands existing schools at private and public schools in Butler and Warren counties. Marshall High School in Middletown is more than doubling its number of learning labs while Rosa Parks Elementary in the public city schools is also expanding. Badin High School in Hamilton is adding to its campus and Carlisle Schools in Warren County will open a new, pre-K-12 school in early September. (File And Provided Photos/Journal-News)

One of Butler County’s few private, career tech schools is more than doubling its classroom size by the fall.

Middletown’s Marshall High School is now in the middle of its largest expansion since it first opened in 2013 with an initial enrollment of 150 students.

But the school isn’t alone locally as construction projects are also happening at other area private and public schools including Badin High School, Carlisle Schools and Rosa Parks Elementary in Middletown’s public school system.

“This will take us to the next level,” said Chuck Hall, principal of Marshall, which is at 4720 Roosevelt Blvd.

“I believe career tech learning is the way our society is moving toward and our expansion will help open up our community as well,” said Hall, whose school will go from three main learning spaces to seven once the expansion is done by October totaling about 8,000 square feet.

The new space will allow Marshall’s current enrollment of 275 high school students – most from Middletown and elsewhere in Butler County – to expand to 350.

School construction is also continuiing at the city’s public schools as a $10 million expansion of Rosa Parks Elementary moves forward to its August 2021 completion.

The school will have 13 additional classrooms, but its current learning spaces will also be dramatically remodeled to better accommodate a new instructional approach — Challenge Based Learning — the district plans to install there, said Middletown Schools officials.

In Carlisle, demolition continues on the old high school, which will soon be replaced soon by a $49 million, pre-K through 12 school building.

The new Carlisle school is scheduled to open on September 8 as the district delayed its usual August start of classes to accommodate the final stages of preparation for the new building.

The new state of the art, two-story facility will have separate sections for the pre-school, kindergarten and elementary school students at one end of the building, a middle school section in the middle of the building, and the high school at the other end of the building.

Badin High School in west Hamilton is the only Catholic high school in Butler County and soon its students will have access to a $2 million Student Development Center when classes resume in mid-August. It will add 8,000 square feet for the school’s 620 students

“We’ll relocate various offices — including the office of campus ministry, our counseling services, the athletic department, admissions, marketing, development and service learning - into this nice complex,” said Dirk Allen, spokesman for Badin.

“It will include a dedicated student commons for our students to congregate and get work done before, during and after school.”

“Work has continued throughout the pandemic as our construction team has done a great job getting the Student Development Center completed in a timely fashion,” he said.

Dirk said “we will be gaining the use of two classrooms in the main building, and our personnel are in the process of packing up their current offices to relocate to the new facility.”

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