By Ari Houston

The bright blue hallways, the expansive bulletin boards stretching down the hallways and the large multi-colored alphabet rugs are the first things the young kindergarten students see as they travel into the school for the first time.  

The large number of students coming into the township and the small amount of rooms available were what prompted the addition of four kinder centers around Perry Township. In order to account for the mass influx in population, the schools would need to add 89 more classrooms. 

Although the kindergarten academies are their own separate school, they are connected to the schools they are next to, similar to Perry 6th Grade Academy connected to Perry Middle School. The centers have been directly added onto a pre-existing elementary school, so once the kindergartners “graduate” from the academies they will filter into the elementary schools near the centers.

Each academy functions as a separate school with its own gym/activity center, cafeteria and playground that is separate from the elementary playgrounds. The teachers from the elementary buildings moved into the new classrooms before school started and spent the next few days busily cleaning and setting up their rooms.

The classrooms are bigger than what the pre-existing classes were so the setup is slightly different as well. Each teacher is able to customize the room however they see fit like usual but each class comes with two sinks, furniture and some decorations already.

Kindergarten teachers like Stacy Reinke are excited for the change. “Who would have thought that we’d get new buildings.” Reinke said.