The new Elliston-Lafayette Elementary School will have outdoor classrooms and porch areas for children, as well as a school bus drop-off area in the back. Want to see more? Visit Chalk Dust, the New River Valley's education blog, to see additional artists renderings of the school at blogs.roanoke.com/chalkdust.

Renderings courtesy of Montgomery County Public Schools

In 2010, elementary students in eastern Montgomery County should enter a futuristic building designed to accommodate both technology and outdoor learning, according to design plans unveiled Tuesday night.

"It kind of reflects the feel of the area," said David Bandy, director of design with Roanoke-based Spectrum Design.

The firm presented plans for the new Elliston-Lafayette Elementary School at a joint meeting between the county's school board and its board of supervisors. A few residents, teachers and school administrators also attended.

In 2007, the county purchased 20 acres adjacent to U.S. 460 in Elliston for a new school. By November, the school board decided to combine Elliston-Lafayette and Shawsville elementary schools into one school, despite some community protests.

After that, Spectrum had a series of meetings with school leaders, parents and teachers. Bandy said the firm worked to incorporate pieces of what everyone wanted in a new school, including play areas and aesthetics such as limestone facings.

Sloped roofs mimic the feel of the Blue Ridge Mountains and green spaces will accommodate both play and lessons, he said.

The campus layout includes six play areas. Two of those are immediately off the academic wings of the building, according to the plans. Those wings, coined "classroom neighborhoods," are designed to separate younger students from older students in the pre-K-5 building.

The 35-classroom school will have outdoor classrooms and porch areas for children, as well as a prominent library and school bus drop-off area in the back, which will keep bus traffic separate from parents who drive their children to school.

"I know my kids' teachers try to take them outside, but they aren't the best areas," said Ellen Garren, a parent of Shawsville Elementary students.

She said she has mixed feelings about the Elliston-Lafayette building.

The school is designed to hold up to 600 students and has an estimated $26.8 million price tag. Right now, projections show that about 450 students from the region will enter the building when it opens.

Garren said she'll miss the small feeling of Shawsville Elementary, which has about 250 students, but she welcomes covered walkways for students and newly engineered drop-off points.

Shawsville Elementary gets crowded in the morning because buses and parents drop off students at the same spot, she said.

Shawsville Principal Denise Boyle said the new school should be a gem.

"I really look forward for it to be a special experience between both communities," she said.

However, Boyle may not be at its helm. Administrative and teaching positions will have to be cut when the school opens to avoid duplicating spots.

On the technology side, each classroom wing will house between four and six computers in addition to the computer labs dotting the areas used for music and art.

The music and art areas and administrative suites also are filled with meeting spaces and storage, something Boyle said is essential.

While the project is progressing as scheduled, with bids slated for October, construction beginning in November and move-in during the summer of 2010, rising gas prices and construction costs are hurting it a bit. Preliminary figures show the building, including construction and furnishings, could be about $500,000 over budget. To accommodate that, the design firm cut back on some of the more than $1 million it planned for unexpected expenses.