OAKWOOD, GA. – A crowd of Hall County School District (HCSD) students, faculty, staff, and school board leaders gathered yesterday for a groundbreaking ceremony at the site of what will soon be a new elementary school to replace Oakwood and McEver elementary schools in Hall County.
Continuing a strong partnership, Carroll Daniel team members joined Hall County Schools to celebrate the start of construction for the replacement elementary school. The new 133,000 SF facility will offer an updated learning environment built to accommodate 1,025 students. Scheduled to open its doors in August 2025, the school represents a pivotal milestone in advancing educational infrastructure within the community.
With the average age of elementary schools in HCSD over 40 years, this school is part of a larger construction plan to build four new schools to replace seven existing ones – bringing the total number of elementary schools from 20 to 17. Carroll Daniel Construction was previously selected to build the first of the new schools, Sandra Dunagan Deal Elementary School, which will open in August 2024 and replace White Sulphur and Riverbend elementary schools.
“These larger, modern facilities are much more economically efficient, but on a more important level, they’re more instructionally efficient, and you can meet more needs, you can offer more programs,” Hall County Schools Superintendent Will Schofield says, “And so what I get excited about is replacing two buildings that are 60 to 80 years old with a brand new world-class facility and all the programs that come along with it, and this will serve boys and girls for decades. That’s exciting. It’s a good day for Hall County.”
Carroll Daniel Project Manager Hayley Isbell reflected on her personal connection to this project and what it means to lead it. “I’m from Hall County, I grew up in Flowery Branch and Oakwood, so to actually be building a school where I grew up, I mean, you can’t beat that,” she said. “To me, that’s awesome to actually be in charge of a project and see a ground-up build. I mean, the site was a wooded lot three months ago, and in a year and a half, we’re going to have a school here with kids coming in for the first day of school.”
