New North Liberty elementary school ready for students

There are boxes to unpack, books to shelve, even handles to put on windows, but the Iowa City school district's newest school will be ready for the first day of classes.

Buford Garner Elementary School will open its doors to 385 students in kindergarten through sixth grade on Aug. 19. Another 20 kids will attend preschool at Garner.

“It's just incredible, and to think, in a week it will be filled with kids, and we'll be getting to work and this is the facility we'll be working in,” said Principal Mindy Paulsen, who came over from Roosevelt Elementary in Iowa City.

The school, at 80 Birch St. in North Liberty, cost $9.5 million and is 63,715 gross square feet with 32 classrooms filled with state-of-the-art features.

There's a computer lab with 30 computers. Geothermal heating and cooling. A gymnasium built larger with the help of city money that has a short rock-climbing wall.

Taller desks for fifth- and sixth-graders that they can choose to stand at, complete with “wiggle bars” underneath for the feet of those who fidget.

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Photos by Jim Slosiarek

Though things are still being situated, Paulsen said all the necessary equipment for learning is in place. That's if you don't count pencil sharpeners, which are backordered, as essential.

The big item left is the playground, which will be done in phases starting in mid-September.

Students were drawn from overcrowded Penn Elementary and Van Allen Elementary, which shares a basic design with Garner.

“It's familiar, so I think it will be easier on the kids coming from Van Allen going to a new school, but it is kind of making its own statement by having some of those extra details in there,” said Shawn Eyestone, the parent of two Garner students.

The school's namesake was the principal at City High and then district superintendent in the 1950s and 1960s. Buford Garner died at age 92 in December 2008,  just days before the school board approved the name of the school.

Eight schools were built during Garner's 17 years as superintendent. Another building boom is happening now.

“It's timely,” school board President Patti Fields said of the Garner name.

Garner Elementary is the fourth school the Iowa City school district has opened since 2005. Two of the others, Van Allen Elementary and North Central Junior High, also are in North Liberty. (The Clear Creek Amana school district opened an elementary school in North Liberty two years ago.)

The Iowa City school district is building another elementary school in the Crossings neighborhood north of West High. Fields said either building additions or a new elementary school will be needed on the east side. And a new high school likely will be built in the North Liberty area several years from now.

Student enrollment was 11,903 this past school year, up 12 percent from 10 years before.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held at Garner at 2 p.m. Aug. 27.