Denair Elementary Charter Academy officially opened its new kitchen and multipurpose room at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday, celebrating the completion of a project that brought much-needed upgrades to the elementary campus while holding on to its history.

"These spaces give our Coyotes more opportunities to learn, play and make memories together," said DECA Principal Crystal Sousa. "We are incredibly grateful to everyone who helped make these improvements possible and for continuing to put our students first."

According to Superintendent Terry Metzger, the district started the DECA project two years ago when they received a state kitchen infrastructure grant.

“Our elementary school was growing, and so we knew that we were going to need to do something for kitchen facilities,” she said.

When the district started working with the architect and looking for where to build the new kitchen, they ended up taking a look at the old high school gym. Instead of building something new, they instead used the existing infrastructure of the old gym and gutted everything else to build up a modern kitchen and multipurpose facility.

With funding from Measure Z, the district was able to bring their plans to life with anew facility almost doubled the kitchen’s capacity, according to Metzger.

Several years ago, state and federal guidelines began shifting back toward scratch cooking for school meal programs. DUSD was ahead of the curve, creating positive changes for its campus cafeterias at its central kitchen on the middle school campus. Now, the DECA culinary staff can prepare lunches from scratch and then turn around and serve them from the same place.

"Our new cafeteria at DECA brings that vision to life," said DUSD Food Service Manager Kim Fuentez. "Just five minutes during the lunch rush shows the incredible difference this space makes. We didn't just build a new cafeteria; we built a healthier, brighter future for every student who walks through our doors."

While the modern kitchen and multipurpose room is useful and much appreciated, the district also decided to keep the original gym floor.

“We uncovered [the floor following construction], and it was in great condition. There were a few areas that needed some repair, but we were able to keep the original striping. So, it has the original block ‘D’ in the center, and it has the original ‘Coyotes’ on the sidelines…I would say last night, that's what we got the most compliments on. People just couldn't stop talking about how great that floor looked and how wonderful it was that we preserved the history of the building,” said Metzger.

At the DUSD board of trustees meeting on Thursday night, board member Ray Prock, Jr. commented that it was great seeing the gym floor that he had wrestled on during his years at Denair High.