MANSFIELD – Students at Richland Academy School of Excellence (RASE) will start next school year in a brand-new building.
Superintendent Sandra Sutherland confirmed that the school has officially closed on its new property located at 1456 Park Ave. West, with plans to start the 2016-2017 school year in the new space. The new building will offer RASE the ability to provide dedicated spaces for their arts classes, and allow for more classrooms for their 195 students.
“Our school has tripled in population since 2012, and we have outgrown our current space,” Sutherland said. “Which is a great problem to have.”
Due to space constraints, RASE could only offer one kindergarten class for the current school year, and all general music classes including Rock Ensemble and A capella choir currently utilize the same space. The art program also currently takes place within regular classrooms, as the art room had to be converted to a regular classroom.
“The new building will allow us to spread out and grow,” Sutherland said.
With over 80,000 square feet, the new Park Avenue school building will include a theatre that will seat up to 800 people, a cafeteria that seats up to 200 students, and provide the space for 16 classrooms. Renovations to the school are currently underway and will be conducted in three phases. Phase one will focus on the classrooms and the theater space.
“We can’t wait to give our academic arts programs the space they need,” Sutherland said. “Dance will be able to have its own space. We’ll have separate music rooms for general music, piano keyboarding and band, and art will have its own classroom again.”
RASE students will also have more space for physical activity. With the new building, Sutherland said the school will finally have a full gymnasium, and a playground will be added onto the adjoining green space. These additions come at the request of many RASE parents through a survey conducted by Sutherland.
“We’ve surveyed parents for the last two years on what they would like to see, and parents have said better parking, a playground and a real gymnasium,” Sutherland said. “Those are the things they’re actually going to get when we move to this other building.”
These were also requests RASE made of their realtor, Jerry Holden with The Holden Agency. Sutherland praised Holden for his role in finding RASE a new school building.
“He was excellent at finding us property and spending time with us,” she said. “This has been a long process for us, but he held us together and we continued to look at the property and make decisions. His guidance was very valuable.”
According to Sutherland, the new building was formerly a Swallen’s department store before it was converted into an office complex. The building has several unique features, including a “castle” hallway built to replicate castle walls and turrets, and a café space with wall murals and a brick “street.” Sutherland said RASE plans on keeping these personal touches.
Most importantly, Sutherland said RASE will keep the personal touch it takes with its students.
“We have designed the school in a way that even though we’re in a building with much more space, it will still have that small-school feel,” she said.
“I am over the moon with this,” she added. “We are thrilled to death.”
