Jenkins Middle School renovations unveiled ahead of reopening
Christian Murdock, the gazette
As the new school year begins in Colorado Springs School District 11, Jenkins Middle School is welcoming back students for the present while continuing work toward its future.
School, district and architectural representatives unveiled Jenkins’ finished renovations and ongoing repairs Monday night after it was forced to close in January by the Colorado Springs Fire Department because of significant structural damage.
Last semester, Jenkins students, staff and faculty relocated to the nearby Russell Middle School and Doherty High School for the remainder of the school year. This fall semester, sixth-grade and seventh-grade students will attend classes in Jenkins’ existing sixth-grade wing and commons area while eighth-graders will remain at Doherty.
“Understandably so, the first couple of months, they (the parents) were upset when students were being displaced,” D-11 Board of Education President Parth Melpakam said.
Among the renovations are new flooring, paint and molding, and new furniture for its current spaces.
Temporary modular units arriving at Jenkins Middle School as construction continues.
Courtesy of Colorado Springs D-11's YouTube channel
Additionally, new modular units will be utilized for 10 of the school’s classrooms this year. The five units are located in the school’s parking lot while new traffic and parking patterns have been implemented to ensure no vehicles cross in front of them and that construction can continue safely.
D-11 Superintendent Michael Gaal said the decision to invest in the new units came down to “meeting that same high bar of educational adequacy” for Jenkins families.
“We could have found five partially used modulars that we already own in the district. One of them has got band equipment and a high school in it, another’s got sporting equipment, one of them has an unused pre-k (school),” he said. “And you could have this hodgepodge of 15-20 year old buildings that somebody would have said they were safe, but it wouldn’t have been to what your expectations are for when you drop your child off at school.”
Areas still under construction will be fenced off throughout the school year. Ongoing projects include debris removal and rebuild of the seventh- and eighth-grade wing along with plumbing installations.
Jenkins Middle School on the road to recovery following mid-year closure
The wing was deemed unsalvageable because of increasing structural damage over the years and its foundation sinking towards the nearby Cottonwood Creek.
Doug Woody, Bryan Construction’s vice president, explained that they determined the long-term solution would be to remove, relocate and rebuild the wings further away from the creek on the southwest portion of the school property.
“We did start the demolition on this a few weeks ago and we wanted to have this out of the way before the students came back in, but all is progressing as planned,” he said.
Debris from Jenkins Middle School’s demolished academic wing on Monday. The wing was deemed structurally unsafe to occupy, and Colorado Springs D-11 opted to replace the wing on another side of the property.
The area in the most dire need of repairs is the school’s media center, which is in the process of getting reinforced by micropiles, a series of small supplemental underpinning, to stabilize its foundation and prevent future shifting.
“So, the full weight of the building is now supported on the micropiles. Micropiles go into the bedrock and then 10 feet lower than that,” said D-11 capital program manager Jennifer Hotaling. “So, then they’re grounded in place so they’re super strong and everything is held in place.”
D-11 had previously earmarked $10 million in renovations for Jenkins during the 2026-27 school year as part of its facilities master plan, but recent inspections found that soil settlement and increased moisture content and density shifted its foundation and compromised its fire barriers.
Colorado Springs D-11 Superintendent Michael Gaal shows the ongoing work being done to repair Jenkins Middle School. The school was forced to close in January due to structural deficiencies.
Since the school’s closure, D-11’s board of education approved to reallocate $31 million in existing district funding to both repair and update the school. On August 9, CSFD Fire Marshal Kris Cooper approved the school for reoccupation.
Along with restoring the existing features of Jenkins, new features that will be developed include an amphitheater and outdoor learning spaces .
Gaal said the additions to the school were developed and finalized in large part by the Jenkins steering committee that formed shortly after the school closed in January.
D-11 expanding academic pathways for specialized instruction into middle schools
“And so, they’ve been a part of that new design…The easy part was ’$31 million, 25,000 square feet.’ Now, how do you situate the rooms? How do we do this? How do we get the flow right? That work is happening right now with our local architects,” he said.
Other ongoing work with Jenkins includes a review of the new design and construction progress by the steering committee. These meetings will continue throughout the school year and through the completion of the repairs, which is slated for August 2026.
The first days of class scheduled at Jenkins were Tuesday for sixth-graders and Wednesday for seventh-graders.
Doherty High finishes school year strong, despite mid-year adjustments
