CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. -- Chesterfield County school leaders broke ground on a new Matoaca Elementary School Tuesday.
The new school will be built on the current Motoaca West Middle Campus on Halloway Avenue.
Tuesday morning crews wasted no time in beginning construction during the ceremony at 10 a.m.
Nine school leaders also symbolically broke ground with their shovels in the dirt to commence the start of that construction.
Matoaca Principal, Mary Thrift, said the ceremony marked a new era for Chesterfield families living in the Southwestern quadrant of the Matoaca District.
"This makes it real... to see the equipment, to see the balloons, and stakes and for us to be out here celebrating today," said Thrift. "It all makes it feel like this is really going to happen for us."
The new Matoaca Elementary School will be home to 750 students when it opens in the Fall of 2020. It will replace the original Matoaca Elementary School built in 1937.
"We've had generation after generation of students and their families go through," said Thrift. "It will give us a larger area for our students to learn, a larger area for celebrations, more 21st century -- a lot more technology."
Mary Thrift
The groundbreaking is the 7th in the last two years for Chesterfield County Schools. It was overwhelmingly approved by voters as part of the 2013 bond referendum.
Four more replacement school groundbreakings are scheduled within the next 16 months.
