FOLEY - The Florence B. Mathis Elementary School is officially open. A ribbon cutting was held on Monday, Aug. 10 prior to the first day of school. The new K-6 school takes the place of Foley Intermediate School, which was a 5-6.

Foley Elementary School was previously the largest elementary school in the state. With the opening of Florence B. Mathis Elementary School, children in the Foley community are now split between the two locations.

“I’m very excited that we get to reduce the size of our elementary schools, and in doing that we get to reduce the size of our classrooms which helps a lot,” said JaNay Dawson with the Baldwin County School Board. “We now have two K-6 schools inside the City of Foley, which says also to everyone how quickly we are growing.”

The new school is 123,247 total square feet, is designed for 1,200 students, and includes 54 standard classrooms, 12 collaborative rooms, four special needs rooms, a music room, an art room, an SRO office at the front of the school, two gyms (a new gym as well as the intermediate school’s gym), a cafetorium, a storm shelter, and more. The new school also has more parking spaces than the previous school, with 238 regular parking spaces and ten bus parking spaces.

“The City of Foley partnering with the Baldwin County Board of Education has been fantastic,” said Baldwin County Public Schools Superintendent Eddie Tyler. “Mayor John Koniar and his council have been very gracious and helpful. The 9th Avenue extension was a partnership with the city taking it all the way to Hickory Street at their cost. This is as important to them as to anyone because of what it brings to the City of Foley, what it brings to the Foley feeder pattern.”

The new school was named for teacher Florence B. Mathis, who originally lived in Mobile but made the trip to the area almost daily to teach in the community, until eventually moving to the area permanently. The elementary school will be paid for next year and is part of the school board’s pay as you go project, which allows the school board to pay for projects in a four-year timeframe, leaving no debt to the schools.

“It is an honor and a privilege to be the first principal of Florence B. Mathis Elementary School,” said Dr. Shannon McCurdy, who was the principal of Foley Intermediate School prior to accepting the position at the new school. “Over the past two years we have watched builders lay every brick with the anticipation of this day. Needless to say we are beyond excited to be in our new building and to return to school … In a 1966 yearbook, Mathis wrote ‘each of us has an inner spark. Be willing to test your spark, keep it alive, try it out, persist, choose your field and seek the effective life.’ On behalf of the faculty and staff of the new Florence B. Mathis Elementary School, we commit to finding our inner spark. We are going to be the change Mathis wanted to see in education, and we will maintain a positive learning environment with inclusive classrooms to meet the needs of every child.”