Novi Meadows Elementary has grand opening celebration and open house

NOVI — After years of dreaming and two years of construction, the new Novi Meadows Elementary School in Novi, which houses fifth and sixth grade students, is now complete. To celebrate, the school held a ribbon-cutting followed by an open house for the public Sept. 16.

“This building has been a dream in the making for many, many years,” said Lisa Fenchel, sixth grade principal. “Novi Meadows was one of the first five-six buildings in the state, in the nation, and it’s really exciting to see how it’s grown.”

Fenchel said the school used to have several smaller buildings that were once other things, and now they finally have a space that was designed specifically for fifth and sixth grade students.

The school was partially completed in the fall of 2023 with the then-fifth grade students getting to utilize the building full time, while the sixth graders used it for specials. This year, the second floor is completed, along with a stadium-size gymnasium that can seat 1,200 people, a new playground, and a cafeteria that is connected to the second floor by a grand staircase.

“If there is a nicer fifth and sixth grade building in this country, I’d love to see it, because I don’t think it exists,” said John Brickey, fifth grade principal.

“This building was thought through and designed with the idea of, ‘What got us here will not get us there.’ We are trying to educate kids for jobs that do not exist yet, for a world that they don’t understand what it is going to be. They need to be able to think together, to work together to solve new problems together. You’re about to walk into a building that offers these opportunities.”

Amid a group of sixth graders, board members and Superintendent Ben Mainka, Brickey and Fenchel then took hold of a giant pair of scissors and cut a green ribbon to symbolize the opening of the completed structure.

Following the ribbon-cutting, the students were stationed in the various classrooms that were open to tour, and they offered their insight on the school.

“The fifth graders here are so lucky to have the new lunches in the new building, because before we’d have to walk outside to some of our classes,” said Rory Chase, 11, a sixth grade student.

“It didn’t matter if it was raining or snowing or acid rain. It wouldn’t matter, we’d just have to go out there,” added Zander Sudds, 11, a sixth grade student.

“I love the new band room. We used to have to walk a half-block up to 2 miles each day to get to this area or that area,” said Ian Leggett, 11.

“It’s really nice now that we don’t have to walk outside when it’s raining,” said Cason Kliebert, 12.

Chase and Sudds also raved about the food in the new cafeteria, saying, “It’s actually fresh and just way better than last year.”

Along with the cafeteria, the kids said the playground was their favorite hot spot.

Many parents and community members were raving about the school.

“I think it’s great,” said Tom Ryan, of Northville, whose 11-year-old son, James Alsheimer, was giving robotics demonstrations.

“I mean every classroom has got modern technology. It’s fabulous,” Ryan said.

“It’s awesome. It’s beautiful. This building is nicer than my college was,” said Megan Alsheimer, James’ mom.

“I think it’s pretty amazing. It looks just like a college campus,” said Lisa Halton, an eighth grade parent.

Frank Svechota, of Novi, came to see the new school for himself, although his children are well past the age to attend the school. He said his neighbor’s kid attends Novi Meadows and all he can talk about is how great the food is in the cafeteria. Svechota said the building was way better than the private Catholic school he attended back in the day, where the fanciest part of the school was the lockers.

“I think it’s absolutely incredible,” Svechota said of Novi Meadows. “See, when I went to college at U of M back in the day, all the kids that were from Bloomfield Hills and everything, they were thoroughly disappointed on how U of M’s classrooms compared to their own school, and that’s how this is going to be now, because it’s so beautiful and it’s got everything.”

Svechota said he had no idea from the street view that the school was so big.

“It’s nice to see people from the community who don’t have children in the district, who are a little older and maybe they have grandchildren but don’t get to come to the schools very often, walk through and just see their reactions and comments to all the space, which has been really, really cool,” Mainka said.

Mainka said he loved hearing from people whose children went to Novi Meadows years ago and then were just trying to figure out which parts of the building were from the old spaces.

Emily Reitz was once a student at Novi Meadows and is now the new dean of students at the school. She said it feels like she has come full circle.

“It’s quite incredible with new spaces like robotics labs and learning pods and all the spaces that the kids get to use collaboratively. So, that’s been pretty awesome,” said Reitz.

She said the large cafeteria allows 250 students to have lunch at one time. So there are now two lunch/recess periods for each grade, where one group eats and the other plays.

Mainka said that reducing the number of lunch periods allows the teachers to be able to maximize instructional time. He said it is also a lot easier to supervise.

There are currently around 1,050 students at Novi Meadows.

“It’s a lot of kids, but it doesn’t feel that way. So that’s the best part about the new building, is that even though it’s a lot of kids, the space is really well designed to be able to move them without it ever feeling crowded,” Reitz said.

“This is just first class all the way for Novi,” said Svechota. “It’s really something special.”

For a gallery from the event, click candgnews.com/galleries/view/673.