By Tyler Dahlgren

If you’re lucky enough to take a tour of the brand new and quite dazzling Beatrice Elementary, you’d be doing yourself a favor by taking the following three tips to heart.

First off, allot more time than you’d think you’d need. For many years, Beatrice’s elementary students were scattered across town in four different buildings that deserved their retirement, if you catch my drift. The new Beatrice Elementary is massive, and it has to be. Everybody is now under one roof, and the school serves nearly a thousand students every single day. There’s a lot to see.

Wear comfortable shoes, and bring a notepad. While exploring the state-of-the-art facility, you’re going to want to take notes. Especially if you’re going to be writing a feature on the epicenter of modern learning (note to self). The school was so well thought out that the tour-givers (in this case, principals Missy Timmerman and James Ford) will have something interesting to tell you at every turn.

Prepare to be awed, and don’t shy away from having a little fun. This isn’t your grandfather’s elementary school. Heck, it’s not even your elementary school. In fact, it’s an elementary school that will make you wish you could live those days over again. Beatrice Elementary is innovative and modern, expansive in the learning opportunities it offers students, and yet it still has some of that old school charm. Kids are happy here. The energy inside the building is contagious. And, yes, we did go down the slide.

So there you have it. Three tips from an experienced school tourist who can count on one hand the number of times a school building has left me both astonished and invigorated. The school on the east side of town did just that.

It all started about a decade ago, when the Beatrice Board of Education voiced the need for a new elementary. At the time, there were four elementaries in town.

“They were older buildings, and they weren’t necessarily built as secure environments for kids,” said Timmerman. “Food was getting bussed from the high school, where it had to be prepared at nine in the morning, so it was cold by the time it got here. Not the best food ever. And there was an issue with the equality of services we could provide. For kids to get equitable special education, occupational and physical therapy, our therapists were traveling from school to school all day long.”

Three years ago, the school board tasked superintendent Jason Alexander with finding a way. Make it happen, they told him.

“And so he made this happen, and it has been quite an adventure,” Timmerman said with a deep breath and a laugh. “I’ll never build a house after being a part of building this, but taking a vision of creating a next-level building where hands-on learning, community learning and collaboration, and having fun is at the forefront is what we have here.”

Timmerman, who took a quick break from the tour to race kids across the gymnasium, isn’t lying. The attention to detail is hard to articulate with a written word. Bottom line, the place is amazing, and it’ll undoubtedly attract amazing educators to Beatrice to teach their already-amazing students.

Ford is a perfect example. Beatrice was on the former Cozad superintendent’s short list when he was considering the next move for himself and his family. When he learned of the new building project, Ford knew where he wanted to be.

“It was extremely exciting for our family,” said Ford. “We just feel extremely blessed to be a part of it. And we’ve already seen our enrollment continually climb. We added several new students this week and I anticipate adding more students next week. Missy has said it several times, and she’s spot on, build it and they’ll come. That’s an exciting thing. We have nice, big classes for our kids to learn in.”

The building was built on the precipice of student engagement. Above all, the environment is conducive to learning. 

“I feel like it’s engaged learners, parents and teachers,” said Timmerman. “Waking up every day and going to a school you can’t wait to get to, that’s just fun.”

To maximize the new school’s potential, Beatrice Elementary’s 62 teachers and 150 staff members have become learners, too. It’s a continual adventure, Timmerman said, and everybody under this roof is along for the ride. Turning four schools into one comes with challenges, too.

“Talking about common language, talking about behavior, hopefully when you’re walking through the hallways you won’t hear much because we’ve worked really hard to respect the open spaces of other people,” Timmerman said. “Our innovation center and our library are wide open. There are no walls. And we do continue to look for more professional development opportunities. We’re not flipping the lecture style, but we are exploring different ways we can help kids learn the way they need to learn now-a-days.”

The opportunities far outnumber the challenges, Ford said. They’re building the culture at Beatrice Elementary every day, and, even in two short months, it’s very clear the foundation is strong.

“Missy has a wealth of ideas on fun, exciting and engaging things for kids to do,” said Ford. We’re just now starting to implement the Golden Spatula in our cafeteria for kids getting caught doing things the right way. We’re getting kids excited to come to Beatrice Elementary and teachers excited to come to Beatrice Elementary. Building that culture is a consistent approach.”

Every piece of furniture in the building is on wheels and can be easily moved for group work. The playground equipment is inclusive. Everything is inclusive. Each wing of the building is color-coded, all the way down to the carpet in the preschool, which has inlaid lines to promote smooth traffic flow. 

“Each wing has all of the things teachers need to be successful that make it the best learning environment possible for kids,” said Ford. “A lot of intentional planning went into it. It’s so cool to see that the vision has become a reality.”

They call it modern learning, and it’s a sight to behold.

“Hands-on, outside-of-the-box, creative and teamwork-driven,” Timmerman said when defining modern learning. “Those interpersonal relationships with people are something you have to have, especially in the world of communication and phones and social media. Providing the opportunity and the space to foster that kind of learning is rewarding as an educator.”

None of this would have been possible without the Beatrice community. Their support has been amazing, Timmerman added, even through three different traffic patterns already this school year because of road construction around the school.

“Their support has been pretty unreal,” she said. “When parents and kids talk about our building, they talk about the fun stuff. They talk about how their kids want to come to school, about how much they enjoy it.”

Relationships, Ford said, are the secret sauce.

“It is our community school, and they are fired up about it,” Ford said. “It’s fun to see. It’s neat to see the kids being proud of their school and proud to come to Beatrice Elementary every day.”

In here, memories are already being made. 

Down the road, these kids will think back to their days in elementary school and all the fun will rush back in waves. They’ll remember recess on the playground and racing Principal Timmerman through the gymnasium. They’ll remember the big purple slide and, hopefully, some of the great things they learned along the way.

“We want them to remember that they were loved here,” Timmerman said. “We want them to know that they matter, that this is their safe spot. Learning is at the forefront, absolutely, but we want them to know that they are cared for and that we want the best for them.”