Star Journal Report

It was  sunny but windy and brisk Wednesday morning when School District of Rhinelander administrators and school board members met with project managers at three schools to hoist a few shovels of dirt into the air as the symbolic beginning to the district’s construction projects.

Greenfire Management Services in Wausau is in charge of the $2.9 million project, which will include adding two classrooms to Pelican elementary, two classrooms and a remodeled kitchen at Crescent, and two classrooms, a new principal’s office, new main entrance and drop off-pick up location at Central. Work is expected to be completed for the 2019-20 school year.

The classrooms are needed, superintendent Kelli Jacobi said, to help alleviate overcrowding and to allow reconfiguration of the grade levels to accommodate 4K through grade 5 at all three schools. Currently, fourth and fifth graders attend Central.

School district administration will be working on reconfiguring boundaries in the coming months. Jacobi said parents will be kept informed as the work proceeds.