Goodman Elementary Opens

Students in Goodman, Mo will start the year off in a brand new building after an April 2017 tornado destroyed the only school in Goodman, Missouri. After losing homes, businesses, and their Elementary School, the town’s roughly 1,200 residents in McDonald County were ready to rebuild. Sapp Design was selected to help Goodman get its elementary school back after providing the district with the Neosho Jr. High School just one year previous.

The old elementary school lacked the appropriate amount of classroom space, having to resort to mobile trailers, and sat dangerously close to the railroad tracks to the south. The new 45,000 sf school not only has enough general classroom space for all 400 students (existing and future) but also has areas for collaborative teaching and learning spaces accessible to everyone.

The residents of Goodman came together to rebuild their community as a collective group of family, friends, and neighbors. Similarly, the design enables students to learn in a school that feels like a community: classrooms are approached through an open and collaborative space, rather than a typical corridor. Visibility within the classrooms is not only to the exterior but also to the shared spaces in the core of the building. The ceilings of these core collaborative spaces are taller, a different material, and have altered proportions from those of a typical classroom. All of these changes will remind students that even though they may be in a classroom with just 20 others students, there is a much larger space just outside the door: one shared by all students; one that can function as a special classroom, one that can inspire students to really embrace their community and their fellow students.