Wellington community celebrates breaking ground on new middle/high school

On a blustery Colorado afternoon in December, Poudre School District and the Wellington community marked a historic occasion – the start of construction on the town’s new middle/high school – with a groundbreaking celebration.

Wellington students – along with PSD Board of Education members, PSD Superintendent Dr. Sandra Smyser, Wellington town staff and leaders, and PSD staff – took part in the ceremony, which was held underneath one of the historic arches that once stood part of the original Wellington High School.

“Today is a long time in the making,” Wellington Middle School Principal Kelby Benedict said. “The Town of Wellington will soon have a high school once again, carrying on traditions and building new ones. … The generation sitting before us is going to get to carry those traditions on.”

PSD, in partnership with RB+B Architects and Adolfson & Peterson Construction, recently began work on the new school, which will be the academic home for some 1,500 middle and high school students starting in the fall of 2022. It is one of three new schools being built following voter approval of a bond and mill levy override in 2016.

“It is a school that will carry our children forward into their futures,” PSD Superintendent Dr. Sandra Smyser told the crowd.

The approximately 247,500 square-foot building will be located at 8543 N. County Road 9, west of Interstate-25 and north of County Road 62E, about 1.5 miles west of current Wellington Middle School located at 4001 Wilson Avenue in Wellington.

When the school opens, students from current Wellington Middle School will be moved to the new school, eventually serving students in grades six through 12. In total, the cost for the new school is expected to be between $115 and $130 million. A boundary map for the new school is available here.

Voters in 2016 approved a $375 million bond and $8 million mill levy override to fund construction of three new schools — the new middle/high school in Wellington, and an elementary and middle/high school east of Interstate-25 — as well as an athletics complex, transportation maintenance facility, and the now-completed Zach Elementary addition.

The bond will also fund $40 million of improvements to every existing school. These projects will start later in 2019 and continue over the next three to four years. The $8 million mill levy override will, among other things, pay for operating costs of the new buildings.