Nettie S. Freed K-8 School opens in Pueblo at site of former Heroes K-8 Academy

PUEBLO, Colo. (KRDO) - On Thursday, Aug. 24, the Nettie S. Freed K-8 Magnet Expeditionary School opened doors for parents and students to tour.

Construction took just over a year of work and thirty-eight million dollars to erect the school on the site of the former Heroes K-8 Academy.

District 60 said the former Heroes K-8 Academy was demolished due to significant structural issues. The Nettie S. Freed K-8 Expeditionary School campus retains the school’s football field/running track and auxiliary gymnasium.

The school is one of five new schools opening in Pueblo this year. This school specifically helps relieve an "educational desert" for 7th and 8th-grade students in the area, the district said.

"We have lots of really good elementary schools, really close by. But for middle school, kids are all over the place. They have to go across town or over to Heaton or some of the other schools," Principal of Nettie S. Freed, Nicolas Roberts said.

The school focuses on STEM education, offering multiple spaces for chemistry, design, and 3D printing. The open-concept architecture puts each grade in a "pod" with different classrooms, each themed after a different mountain.

Though the grades are separated, a priority of expeditionary education is to get kids of all ages to work together.

"It gives us an opportunity to have younger kids see older kids as leaders, and gives older kids more opportunities to be leaders that they can come in and work with younger kids," Roberts said.

This year the school accepting 350 students. The school will not accept any new seventh and eighth graders this year but will graduate each class up, meaning that they will be at full capacity in two years.