FOLEY, Ala. — The way Foley Elementary principal William Lawrence sees it, Foley has the most modern and state of the art educational facility in the nation; even if it’s only for one day.

Marking the end to a years-long process, 850 grade-schoolers took their first official steps into their new school Monday morning.

“For at least one day we can truly say that we have the best and newest school in the country,” Lawrence said. “Nobody else can say that today. Maybe tomorrow someone will be newer, but at least today it’s us.”

Almost twice the size of the old facility, the school features a new library with amphitheater seating, science labs, state of the art computer labs and most importantly, room to grow.

The old facility featured multiple portables on campus, many of which housed two classrooms in one. Now, with individual music and art classrooms, each of those rooms could hold four portables.

“There’s so much space,” Lawrence said. “There’s even empty rooms that we won’t be using until next fall, we haven’t ever had that before.”

The next school year will see even more changes as the school’s third graders will move on to fourth grade, but stay at Foley Elementary instead of moving onto the Intermediate school. The fourth grade teachers will move down to the new facility.

“With all this space we can now do things we couldn’t do before,” he said. “We can fit everyone in the gym. For the first time ever we can have all the children together at one time, in one room to start the morning. It’s a big deal for us. We’ve been telling the children that everything they do today for the first time is historical. It’s a first time thing all day long.”

Lawrence believes the children understand that they are in fact apart of something historical, as the halls are quiet with the children taking in everything they see and do.

“The kids were so excited this morning,” Lawrence said. “One child said ‘this is just like in High School Musical.’ Now that is a high compliment.”

Second grade teacher Mary Richardson has seen similar responses from her students.

“I’ve been teaching approximately 20 years,” Richardson said. “This is the first time in all my years of teaching that I’ve worked at a brand new school. The kids love it, they like the rotunda. It’s wonderful. It’s a real honor.”

The rotunda’s walls, still blank from newness will one day feature photos from the past.

“People in the community used to be able to walk through the halls of the old school and point and say ‘Hey, that was my first grade class,” but once that building is demolished they won’t be able to do that anymore,” Lawrence said. “We have to reach for the future by holding on to the past. I want to hang up pictures in the halls from the past so the community can come back and still be able to say ‘that was my first grade class,’ even if it’s just the photo.”

The first picture Lawrence envisions for the halls will take a little assistance from Riviera Utilities. Lawrence has a photo of students standing in front of the original one-room school house — which was still being used as an additional building up until Friday — a photo he hopes to recreate.

Riviera will use one of its bucket trucks to hoist a photographer high in the air to shoot the students standing in front of their new school.

The aerial view will not only recreate the old photograph, but shed some light on the school’s new structure and design.

The school’s new design can appear confusing with the multiple hallways branching off from the main, center hallway. To help ease that confusion for little feet, each hallway is color coded with the tile on the floor. Each hall has a designated grade, while specialized rooms line the main hall.

“We’re really proud that we have two new computer labs with 30 new computers in each lab” Lawrence said. “We have two science labs which we’ve never had before. All the equipment and desks are new. All the old equipment and desks will be used for growth at other schools.”

The move and completion of the school would not have happened without the help of the parents. More than 100 showed up at the school to help move all the teachers’ items and build the pre-kindergarten playground. The playground, completely new to the school and the children, is nearly complete. Everything has been built, the school is just waiting on some seats to hang on the swing chains.

“Last two Saturdays volunteers helped move boxes, build, clean and get ourselves organized. We also had several construction crews volunteer. Without them we couldn’t have made it happen. “

A ribbon cutting ceremony and the burial of a time capsule featuring photos, video and letters written by students will be Friday at the new Foley Elementary.