LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A COVID-19 test, a face mask with the Jefferson County Public Schools logo, wireless ear buds, a 2022 Kentucky Derby glass and a wireless mouse.
Those were among items buried in a time capsule Friday at the site of the new middle school on Echo Trail. The steel time capsule will be unearthed in 50 years in 2072, JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio said.
“Kids may look back at pictures and wonder why JCPS kids were wearing face masks,” he said.
Items were placed in a time capsule and buried at the new Echo Trail middle school site on June 24, 2022. The time capsule will be unearthed in 2072.
The Echo Trail middle school is one of four new JCPS school buildings under construction, two of which are scheduled to open for the 2022-23 school year. The Echo Trail site is slated for completion by the 2023-24 school year.
“Fourteen months from now we will be welcoming buses in here,” Pollio said. “We will be bringing students, teachers, families into this building.”
The Jefferson County Board of Education voted to buy the 40-acre plot near The Parklands of Floyds Fork for $2.1 million in March 2020, and Pollio said the tract has enough land to accommodate a second school, likely an elementary school, if needed.
“We do have that opportunity as this area continues to boom with new subdivisions,” he said. “… This is the new middle school that's been talked about in east Louisville for many, many years. We have a billion dollars in construction need. We have to attack this, and we are.”
JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio discuss the new Echo Trail middle school project on June 24, 2022.
The new middle school is expected to help alleviate overcrowding at middle schools in eastern Jefferson County. Its close proximity to The Parklands of Floyds Fork across Echo Trail and the natural streams and wetlands areas nearby have Pollio envisioning embedded environmental classes at the school, which will have capacity for more than 1,000 students.
The Echo Trail middle school will feature sections specific to sixth, seventh and eighth grades, and the building includes environmentally friendly elements like insulated concrete form walls, LED lighting, and geothermal heating and cooling, Pollio said.
The project has been affected by construction supply and labor shortages. The new middle school construction has been impacted by delays in steel and metal deliveries and an ongoing cement shortage, said John Niehoff, architect project manager with facility planning for JCPS.
“That's just impacted the whole industry,” he said of the cement shortage. What’s more, “the workforce is not there for a lot of these projects,” he said.
Interior work at the new Echo Trail middle school as of June 24, 2022.
However, the original price tag of about $35 million has not grown for JCPS as a result, Neihoff said.
“Costs have gone up, but the contractor has maintained the original bid, so that has not increased for us, but it has for them,” he said.
The Echo Trail middle school is expected to be finished next summer in time for the 2023-24 school year.
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