The relief is palpable in Roden when hordes of children run through the building this afternoon. OBS De Marke finally has a real school building again.
“Super beautiful”, is the verdict of Sven from group 6. Next year he will enter the penultimate year of primary school. “I’m really looking forward to learning here.” The 10-year-old Tess is also looking forward to it. “It’s actually a shame that we’ll be leaving school soon, because then we wouldn’t have been able to sit in this building that long.”
It has also been allowed to take long enough, agrees alderman Alex Wekema of the Noordenveld municipality. In December 2018, the school closed its doors after the foundation subsided. After that, De Marke was in an emergency building for 3.5 years. “Would it have been faster? I don’t think so,” says Wekema. “We ran into a number of problems, including the construction freeze due to PFAS and later another bat problem.”
The temporary units cost 10,000 euros per month, while for a long time there was no question of much comfort. Problems with heat, ventilation and acoustics affected the school. “It was a strange and intense time”, director José Wolters looks back. “Due to the subsidence, we suddenly had to send the children home with their personal belongings. After the holidays, the emergency building was there. Very beautiful, but not a real school of course. We now have that again.”
The construction of the new child center on the Molenweg went very smoothly. Contractor Hunebouw started at the end of November and still had a big job to get everything finished on time, says Klaas Graveland on behalf of the company. “We had quite a short construction time. When I came here six weeks ago, there was still quite a bit to do. If you now see how far we have come…”
It is not completely finished yet, for example, work is still being done on the parking spaces and some work still needs to be done on the building, but the deadline will in any case be met. “It looked like the Tour de France here last week, it was so busy,” says alderman Wekema, who often drove by.
The new building meets all requirements. There is a lot of space for practical training, with a kitchen and a do-think room. The staircase is also suitable as a podium. “The children are going to have a lot of fun with that,” Wolters thinks.
The director foresees problems in the fairly short term, however. “We are already seeing the number of students increasing. We fear that we will already have a shortage of space next year.”
Alderman Wekema sees the problems. “This building has possibilities to expand, but in principle we first look at schools in the area if there is not enough space. This could mean that children who would then sign up for De Marke would have to go elsewhere.”
On the day of the key transfer, these problems are hardly noticeable. Wolters leads the way in the polonaise, she says with a laugh. “Sure, will you follow?”
Watch the report about the festive opening of OBS De Marke below: