Charter school to move into vacant elementary school building - KCTV 5

KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -

There will be students walking the halls of Douglas Elementary School once again.

The Kansas City, MO School District agreed to sell the vacant school building to the Alta Vista Charter School and students and staff couldn't be happier.

Thursday afternoon at an assembly to recognize Alta Vista students who made the honor roll, Superintendent Gilbert Guerrero thought it was the perfect time to announce the big move their students will soon be making.

"Our bid was accepted, we are going to have a big high school. We purchased Douglas High School last night," Guerrero told those in attendance to a response of applause.

The KCMO School Board agreed to sell the vacant Douglas Elementary School to Alta Vista Charter School for $700,000. Students couldn't be happier about the purchase. Currently, nearly 200 of them have to squeeze into their small building at 17th and Holly streets.

"Like I got excited because the school building we are in right now is really small and I can't get into the hall," said student Aritt Velazquez.

"I feel proud because we started with so little and now we've grown a lot," said student Brayan Pardo.

Guerrero, who founded Alta Vista 20 years ago, said this purchase shows just how far the program has come since starting in the basement of a church with only five students.

"The school reputation changed from a drop-out, gang school to a school that has high expectations for them – a hard school," said the superintendent.

Guerrero said the school, which is 92 percent Latino, was ranked first out of all the Kansas City high schools in state math testing, surpassing the state average by 20 percent.

One of the most exciting results of the purchase is the new building will allow Alta Vista to nearly double their student body and help even more students get on a path towards college.

"It's good to see options and it's good to see that the work of the students was the real important reason why we got the acceptance of our bid - because of our performance," said Guerrero.

The new building needs a lot of work. Since it was previously an elementary school, the bathrooms will need to be redone for high schoolers. The building needs other major renovations as well, including a new heating and cooling system.

All of the renovations could cost up to $1 million so the school most likely won't be ready to open for students until the fall of 2013.