WEST POINT, N.Y. -- Senator Charles Schumer and Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney announced the Army has awarded the West Point Elementary School a nearly $48 million contract to build a new state-of-the-art facility.
Officials said the elementary school is in need of an upgrade.
"We've maximized the capacity," said West Point Elementary Principal Denise Cochenour. "The building is close to 60 years old. We have retrofitted the building over the course of those years; we have actually three different facilities put together into one in order to make what we are currently in."
"This whole initiative is based upon the normal life cycle that the government, as well as private sector, undertakes to modernize their facilities based upon age," said West Point Facilities Engineer David Yanik.
West Point Elementary was originally built in 1963. Lawmakers said the school building violates many federal regulations. School officials said the new building will allow better teaching techniques.
"We need the building so we can have upgraded technology. We need to be able to facilitate the collaborative learning experiences that are necessary for 21st century learning, and this facility will be able to allow us to do that," Cochenour said.
They say the new building will house more than 500 students from military families in pre-kindergarten through fourth grade.
"The new facility will have what's known as neighborhoods," Cochenour said. "It will be a larger area, and it will be a larger area where five or six classrooms open up into a common area so really the building becomes an additional teacher."
Construction on the new school is expected to be finished in 2020.