With the new high school checked off Wayne County School District’s list, Superintendent Randy Shelley and the rest of the district can start work on their next project: a replacement elementary school.
The new school to be built in Bicknell will replace Loa Elementary School, built in 1953. Currently LES has 230 students.
One of the reasons the district had to wait until after the high school was finished was so that they could build on the property of the now-demolished Wayne Middle School. The elementary school is to be built where the school used to stand. All that is left of WMS is the old gym.
LES does not need any special upgrades. It’s just old.
“The majority of upgrades are around safety and design,” Superintendent Randy Shelley said. Each grade level (preschool through 6th grade) will get two classrooms, with an additional classroom for STEAM projects and art. As included in all of the newer designs, there will be a separate fenced-off playground for kindergarten and preschool.
Superintendent Shelley told me Thursday that the project currently does not have a timeline.
“We are finalizing plans and won’t have a completion date until after we go to bid for subcontractors,” he said, and that might take until May or June.
Both the new high school and the new elementary school have been in the district’s sights for many years.
Loa is not the first, and probably not the last, in a long line of recent elementary school updates along the Byway. Bryce Valley got a new school in 2019, followed by Panguitch in 2021 and Escalante in 2024. Piute School District is currently in the process of replacing both Oscarson and Circleville elementary schools, to be completed by fall 2026.
Wayne County School District will have more information about the new school at its community wellness night on February 10.
– The Byway