Urbana Schools Previewing New Early Childhood Center

This weekend, Urbana District 116 schools will unveil the district’s new Early Childhood School.

Principal Cris Vowels says the programs are the same, but the address has changed, to East Washington Street, connected to the Prairie School building.

A ribbon cutting will be held Saturday.

Vowels said the layout of the 58,000 square foott building will be more conducive to learning, while even accessing the internet was a challenge in the old building.

“That building was built in 1926, and it obviously wasn’t built for technology at the time," he said.  "It has a lot of asbestos in it, so we couldn’t drill in the walls to put in a computer system that was going to work at high effective manner.  Where the technology in this new building is state of art, it’s fast, it’s efficient.”

Vowels said parents can access the district’s curriculum through its website.  The new school is also ‘green’, constructed with a geothermal system.

Most of the building was constructed through the 1 percent sales tax approved by voters a few years ago. 

The open house is from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. at 2202 East Washington Street in Urbana.