There will be two new Pre-K through 4 school buildings on the site where Cookson Elementary School and Hook Elementary School are currently located and a site near the “old” Concord Elementary School Building on recently purchased land between McKaig Road and State Route 718.  

In the southern portion of Troy on Swailes Road between S. Co. Rd. 25-A and Peters Rd. there will be a building for grades 5-6.

We looked at a map of Troy, which featured where students lived, as a blank slate. We set out to put schools in locations around Troy that were the most densely populated by our students. What we found was that there were no schools south of Kyle Elementary School. Our goal was to put an affordable number of schools in locations that made the most sense in terms of best serving our student population as close to their neighborhoods as possible.

The Cookson and Hook buildings would be demolished to make room for the new buildings.

We would likely keep the Forest Elementary School building. It’s the building we’ve put the most money into recently, with a new roof and other upgrades. We could use that space for alternative education programs.

We plan to abate and demolish Kyle, Van Cleve, Heywood and Concord. The properties where Kyle, Van Cleve and Heywood sit were part of a property swap with the city that allows us to build on the current Cookson and Hook sites..

First, it’s most cost-effective for us to deliver special instruction to fifth and sixth graders. Take band, for example. Currently we have band in one sixth grade building. If we were to make four K-6 buildings, we would need four band rooms, four band storage rooms and possibly more band teachers to cover each of those four schools. Fifth and sixth grade is typically the age where you start to introduce those types of electives, so it makes sense to have them in one location. Having them under one roof makes more sense from a cost and personnel standpoint.

Second, we feel it makes the most sense from a developmental and social aspect. Students in the fifth and sixth grades are different from students in grades K-4 socially, developmentally and in terms of maturity, while at the same time being very different from junior high or high school students by those same measures

Our district is projected to remain relatively flat with enrollment. But, if we do grow, we are going to have the space and capabilities to grow our buildings at a relatively low cost.

All of the new elementary schools would be handicap-accessible. Our plan would be for each building to have a handicap-accessible unit at their neighborhood school.

Yes. All of the schools would not only be fitted with new security cameras, but the designs of the new buildings would be safer in terms of increased layers at entry points.

We purposefully partnered with Ruetschle Architects because of their track record of designing schools that not only are energy efficient, but also make use of ecologically-friendly technology. Ruetschle Architects designed the new school buildings within the Milton-Union School district, which now pays an average of 66 cents per square foot to heat and cool their buildings. The average cost to heat and cool a school building is about $1.25

It is not our plan to dismiss school employees once we go to the new school buildings. While we will need fewer positions in some areas, we feel as though we can get to those numbers through attrition, whether that be retirements or employees choosing not to return. We will still have the same number of students to educate, therefore will need to maintain a strong workforce. Our staffing costs will go down, but we will do it through attrition.

Students will be bused to the west elementary school and to the south intermediate school.  Students at the north school and the east school will walk if they live within a mile and will be bused if they live beyond that.

Students at both sites will continue to have outdoor recess (weather permitting) at Cookson and Hook during the construction of the new buildings, which will be next to where the current buildings are located.

For construction to move forward in a timely fashion that will keep the entire project on track, however, that meant removing all of the playground equipment from Cookson and almost all of the playground equipment from Hook.

We understand that many families have their concerns about the playground equipment being removed. If this could have been avoided without adding extra time or cost to the project, we would have done so. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

While students will not have a playground filled with equipment, they WILL still be going outside (again, weather permitting) for recess until the new buildings are in place. We principals at both schools will be working with both staff and members of their respective PTOs to ensure that students have engaging play opportunities.

Yes, our historical committee is currently planning for that. While we don’t have any dates in places, it is something we want to do for our community.

Our historical committee, which consists of current and former Troy board of education members, current and former staff members and longtime members of the community, is looking at all of those options.

We will first look at returning personalized items, such as memoriam plaques and bricks that were purchased as parts of fundraisers, to those they are named after or their family members. Once we have a plan in place, we will begin tracking down those people or their families.

As far as non-personalized items (such as bricks or other items for the buildings), our historical committee is continuing to look at ways to make that happen.

Because we are going from seven buildings to four buildings, keeping the old names wasn’t really an option, that would have meant leaving off some names.

The historical committee did its best to come up with names that were not only neutral, but also informative. By naming the new buildings after directions, not only are we keeping things neutral, but letting people both within the district and visitors from outside the district have some idea where those buildings are located, particularly relative to one another.

That will happen during the 2026-27 school year. We will have a representative committee and will seek community input in the process. As Troy continues to grow and new houses are built, we want to wait to make sure we have the most up-to-date student location information in place to ensure our students are evenly distributed amongst our new buildings in a manner that makes sense to our families and our transportation department.

For example, we don’t want to draw the new lines now, only to have those numbers change should a new housing development near one of our new schools bring a large number of students into that area and change our redistricting lines.

In short, we don’t want to repeat this process and want to make sure we have the most-accurate data to make those decisions.

The North (Hook) and East (Cookson) sites will be completed in late 2026 and open to students when they return from Christmas break in January 2027.

The West (near Concord Elementary School) and South (on Swailes Road) buildings will be complete before school begins in August 2027. The high school HVAC project will also be completed before school opens in 2027.