Exciting things happening for Auburn-Washburn schools this summer

TOPEKA (KSNT)- Summer is on the horizon and that means people are graduating and moving on to the next phase in their lives.

Superintendent for the Auburn-Washburn school district Scott McWilliams said that it is an extremely exciting time for students, and for the staff.

"Graduation is one of the best nights of the year in education," McWilliams said. "I always tell or team that if we do our job well, when our students walk across that stage, we want them to be confident and we want them to have choices."

He said that Washburn Rural High School had about 440 graduates walking across the stage this year.

While highlighting the excitement that graduation brings, McWilliams also said there were more exciting developments on the agenda for the district and families in the near future.

Some of these developments have already happened, like the groundbreaking ceremonies for the early childhood center at Pauline Central, as well as the announcement of the Washburn Rural Housing Innovation Center a few days after.

But, looking ahead to the end of this week, the district is holding a groundbreaking ceremony for the second middle school the district will be starting construction on soon.

The current middle school, Washburn Rural Middle School, is currently serving around a thousand students, and is considered the largest school in Kansas. For this reason, there has been a need for more space.

"So with the bond election, we are able to build the second middle school, and then we are going to transfer 6th-grade students up from the elementary level to the middle school. So now, we will have two middle schools with grades 6th, 7th and 8th."

On Thursday, May 25 at 5 p.m., they will officially hold the groundbreaking for the new middle school on-site at the northeast corner of 29th and Auburn. They open to have the school open by the 2025-26 school year.

But just because they're constructing a new middle school, doesn't mean they are forgetting about the other.

Over the summer, McWilliams said they will be renovating 24 classrooms from the ground up.

"We are going to partner with teachers and support staff at Washburn Rural Middle School to see exactly what we want to do moving forward over the next two summers," McWilliams said. "There will be a lot of design work this upcoming year, and we are going to maximize the summers so we will be able to complete those tasks."

For more details on these topics, you can watch the full interview above.