Ground was broken Thursday on a new early childhood center at the Northwestern Oklahoma State University-Enid campus.
The $2.1 million project is a collaborative effort between Enid Public Schools and Northwestern, which promises to benefit both, NWOSU-Enid Dean Wayne McMillin said.
“I’m excited about this. This is going to be a really great partnership from this day forward,” he said. “I imagine even bigger things to come in the future.”
The new facility is part of the 2016 EPS school bond. Immediately following the passage of the bond, plans began being drawn, McMillin said.
When completed, the will feature four classrooms for EPS pre-K kids, and an observation room for use by NWOSU students, mostly education and psychology majors, so they can watch and learn by looking in on the classrooms.
“This project has been designed with the future in mind and will engage, prepare, inspire and transform the lives of students both younger and older,” EPS Superintendent Darrell Floyd said.
The center will be located on the NWOSU-Enid campus, but as a standalone structure adjacent to the primary building.
Northwestern has had a pre-K classroom inside of its campus for several years, EPS spokeswoman Amber Fitzgerald said, the childhood center will be an expansion of that ongoing partnership.
According to McMillin, Northwestern’s first on-site pre-K class came about in 2015.
“This was a good testing ground for four years … to figure out how our students could work with their students, and that we could all symbiotically work together for the greater good in education,” he said.
Expected completion time for the early childhood center is November 2019, McMillin said.
Story provided by Enid News & Eagle
Written by Mitchell Willetts