Students and teachers at Calcedeaver Elementary School in Mount Vernon will start the new year in a brand-new building, with the Mobile County school system planning a late-January move into the $10.5 million facility.
Tommy Sheffield, facilities manager for the Mobile County school system, said the plan is for students to report to the new campus as soon as classes resume following the holiday break, weather and construction schedules permitting. “If everything goes without a hitch through the holiday, the kids will report to the new facility,” Sheffield said, noting the district is watching for any weather delays that could affect construction or equipment delivery.
Calcedeaver holds a special place among Mobile County’s schools. It is one of 12 schools in the district recognized as a Blue Ribbon school by the U.S. Department of Education, and most of its students come from the MOWA Choctaw Indian tribe. The new 58,000-square-foot building, designed to hold up to 500 students, incorporates floor tiles and mosaic artwork reflecting MOWA Choctaw heritage throughout the facility. “It’s one of the neatest, coolest schools we have in the district,” Sheffield said. “The community really supports the school up there.”
The new building also makes Calcedeaver the third school in Mobile County built with a tornado shelter designed to meet Federal Emergency Management Agency storm-safety standards, following Taylor-White and Whitley elementary schools, both completed in 2013. State law now requires all newly constructed Alabama schools to include such shelters, a requirement that grew out of 2010 legislation passed in response to the EF4 tornado that struck Enterprise High School in March 2007, killing eight students and severely damaging several buildings. The shelters are designed to protect everyone inside the school for up to three hours during a severe weather event.
The Mobile County school board set aside local funding for the new Calcedeaver campus in the spring of 2012, with the overall project budget totaling roughly $12 million. The new site sits about 300 yards from the current school building on Richard Weaver Road, on 30.9 acres donated by the Tensaw Land and Timber Company in the spring of 2013. The land, valued at about $90,000, made the relocation possible without additional acquisition costs to the district.
David Barr and Robert Kirchak served as architects on the project, with Rod Cooke Construction Inc. serving as general contractor. Community members in the Mount Vernon area have closely followed the construction, viewing the new campus as both an educational upgrade and a point of pride for the MOWA Choctaw community it primarily serves.