Staff, administration and community members gathered at Atlas Preparatory School Friday to break ground on a new 44,056-square-foot middle school building that will include a new gymnasium and classrooms.

“Today, as we break ground we do so with the knowledge that this part of the journey is representing a full circle for Atlas,” Brittney Stroh, executive director of Atlas, said at the Friday ceremony.

Since the District 2 charter school’s humble beginnings in 2009, Atlas Prep has persisted and grown from the initial 80 fifth grade students learning at the South Murray Boulevard campus’ North Lincoln Building to more than 1,200 students from K-12, learning throughout the prep school’s elementary, middle school and high school campuses.

The middle school is being built with the help of the $14.1 million BEST grant, along with donations from the Chapman Foundation, Colorado Springs Health Foundation, a federal school safety grant and the Gates Family Foundation. The new Atlas school will provide middle-school students with a regulation competition-sized gymnasium, 25 new classrooms, including four elective spaces for art and science learning, and four “newly designed” intervention spaces for small group learning.

In addition, a new library, cafeteria, kitchen and pantry will be constructed as part of the $24.1 million capital project to assist with the school’s expanding student body are scheduled to be finished by 2026.

According to school officials, the renovation project will include enhancing and expanding the campus’ south building and demolishing the north building. School operations will go uninterrupted during the project’s duration.

Board chair member Carlos Jimenez recounted his time on the building selection committee amid the school’s planning stages in 2009. Looking back at the previously toured facilities as the board searched for a building to house Atlas Prep, he expressed his gratitude and excitement toward the opportunity to build and expand the middle school on the campus where it all began.

“I think it’s true from our founding to now in that the offerings, the teaching and learning from the community, what the experience of the atlas is like for a student is far more important than the physical infrastructure that the student experiences. But we need good physical infrastructure as well,” Jimenez said.

“I’m really excited that we did move into this space and didn’t move into that abandoned King Soopers those many years ago, that we actually have an opportunity to build where we started.”

Atlas Prep Middle School Principal Aaron Pomis told stories of numerous hardships teachers and students have faced due to the school’s aging infrastructure — from recess held in the school’s parking lots to leaky ceilings disrupting classroom learning.

“As we think about this building, I remember a night almost 10 years ago when I had just started at Atlas as seventh and eighth grade science teacher, I had stayed late to figure out how to get that one outlet to run all eight stations of microscopes with found and recovered projectors so that my kids could study cells firsthand the next morning,” Pomis said.

The next morning, Pomis arrived at school in a hallway littered with garbage cans collecting drips of water from the leaking ceiling. As he made his way to his classroom, he was devastated to find parts of the ceiling had collapsed due to water damage.

However, Pomis explained as the school bell rang, he observed the students calmly walking through the halls, navigating the sea of garbage cans as teachers finished their attempts of cleaning before the school day began — a testament to the strength of the school’s community, and resilient pursuit of education.

“It’s a powerful lesson, one that has proven true in the last 20 years of my education experience. It’s not just the building and the brick and mortar and the outlets and the ceiling tiles that make up a school, it’s the people. It’s the hard work and belief of our teachers and staff, the curiosity and resiliency of our students, the support of our community, and the love of our parents,” Pomis said.

“Inside this new building, we are going to find all of that.”