About 100 people gathered on a Sunday afternoon in west Mobile to celebrate the opening of a new school built specifically for students with special needs, marking the end of a years-long effort to replace an aging campus.
The new Augusta Evans School sits on the site of a former middle school that had been demolished several years earlier. The 10.5 million dollar facility replaces the school’s longtime home on Florida Street, which the campus outgrew after decades of use. Augusta Evans serves roughly 270 students between the ages of 3 and 21 who have significant disabilities.
Mobile County Public Schools Superintendent Martha Peek told the crowd that the campus has long been known for its upbeat atmosphere. “In this school, there is a lot of learning, a lot of joy, a lot of happiness, a lot of activities every day,” she said. “I always say Augusta Evans is the happiest school in Mobile County. This is a great day.”
The school board voted unanimously to fund the new building as part of a broader slate of construction projects across the district. Shelia Martin, the district’s director of special programs, said the wait was worth it. “It’s been a long time coming, but we are here,” she said.
The school takes its name from a 19th-century writer who nursed sick and wounded soldiers at Fort Morgan during the Civil War, and whose work later helped lead to the founding of Mobile Infirmary. School officials said the name reflects a legacy of care that fits the campus’s mission.
The new building was designed with the needs of its students in mind. Classrooms are larger than those at the old campus, and hallways were widened so students who use wheelchairs can move around more easily. The school also gained additional space for speech and physical therapy, along with dedicated rooms for activities unique to the program, including greenhouses, a sewing room and space where students sort Mardi Gras beads each year as part of an annual fundraiser.
Sensory rooms equipped with lights, sounds and different textures give students places to explore and decompress throughout the day, a feature staff say has made a noticeable difference since the move.
Community support played a major role in rounding out the new campus. Local backers, including the Rotary Club, raised more than 250,000 dollars to build a playground designed to accommodate children with disabilities, giving students an outdoor space tailored to their needs alongside the new classrooms.
District officials said the move from the old Florida Street building to the new west Mobile campus was completed over the summer, allowing students to start the school year in their new home. For families and staff who had waited years for a modern facility, Sunday’s dedication ceremony offered a formal close to that chapter and a celebration of what many called a long-overdue investment in some of the district’s most vulnerable students.