MATT GENTRY The Roanoke Times

Jude Eichas (left), an employee of Star City Masonry, and Stuart Herron, an employee of Barney Electrical, work on one wing of the new consolidated elementary school in Elliston.

| Anna L. Mallory

anna.mallory@roanoke.com, 381-8627

ELLISTON -- Rough concrete walls surround what will be the gymnasium, cafeteria and main entrance for the new consolidated elementary school in Elliston, and mounds of earth are scattered around the 20-acre site.

Construction officially began Dec. 1 on the first of two new Montgomery County schools expected to be complete in the next two years, but construction crews have been working hard the past few months putting in the foundation and moving dirt.

The $26 million school that will consolidate the current Shawsville and Elliston-Lafayette elementary schools should be ready for students by the start of the 2010-11 school year.

The original estimated completion date was June 2010, which means construction already is slightly behind schedule, said Dan Berenato, director of facilities for Montgomery County's schools.

The eastern Montgomery County school project is the first of two identical projects to take off.

The second is a new school to replace Price's Fork Elementary School. The land for that, a deal between Virginia Tech, the Tech Foundation and Montgomery County, still is caught up in legal paperwork but is expected to be complete soon.

Berenato said he hopes to put out construction bids for that school by early fall.

Both 35-classroom schools will be shaped in two wings -- one for grades pre-K to two; the other for grades three to five.

In Elliston, those classrooms will overlook rolling hills. Each has an enclosed porch that faces a courtyard that teachers can use for outdoor lessons.

Although the school will be built to accommodate 600 students, enrollment figures estimate that about 450 will start there the first year.

"We're really trying to build for the future so we don't end up with mobile units," Berenato said.

The school, which sits about a mile west of Eastern Montgomery High School on a former piece of the historic Fotheringay plantation, also will serve as a community hub. Because the school's baseball and multipurpose fields are recreation size, the county's parks and recreation department will have an office in the school, as will the region's Adventure Club.

Meanwhile, construction workers aren't the only ones preparing for the move. A new principal should be in place by the end of summer, said Mark Pasier, the county's director of human resources.

Applications for the job are due Tuesday, with interviews scheduled to begin July 29. The current principal at Shawsville Elementary already has been assigned to a job at Kipps Elementary School in Blacksburg. His replacement, who has yet to be named, will serve as a one-year hire for the 2009-10 school year, then return to a classroom position, Pasier said.

Duties for the principal of a new building are hefty and include hiring administrative staff and purchasing equipment and supplies for the school.

Want to see how the school progresses over the next year? Montgomery County Public has photos and a timeline at http://www.mcps.org/facilities/construction_info.htm