A Look Inside Red Trail Elementary School in Mandan [PHOTOS]

Last night, the newest elementary school in Mandan opened its doors to the public with it's official ribbon cutting ceremony!

On hand for the ribbon cutting were members of the Bismarck-Mandan Chamber of Commerce as well as the Mandan School Board. Kristen Baesler, Superintendent of Public Instruction, was on hand to give some remarks about the project and what it means to the community. Dr. Mike Bitz, Superintendent of Mandan Public Schools was also on hand to give some remarks about how advanced this school really is.

Revealed during the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony was the school's new mascot, which was voted on my the students over the last 4 weeks. The final decision was the Red Trail Rangers.

Current enrollment in the new school is 280 students. The school was built to hold 300, but is still considered over capacity. Principal Dave Steckler explains:

While we are under capacity in terms of enrollment, we have had to modify a couple of rooms to accommodate for a 3rd kindergarten and 3rd 1st grade classroom. Luckily, we had the space to expand, but had to use rooms which weren't designed for those uses

Steckler continued on, talking about some of the features of the new school:

First thing is that this school is equipped with a state of the art security system, which helps us keep our students safe. I know that the safety of their children is paramount in our parents minds, and being able to tell them that we have the system to keep them safe eases a lot of their worries. Second, our Multi-Sensory Room. This room is available to all students and teachers, and gives our students a space to work on unique projects that we may have passed on teaching because we didn't have the space to do it properly. I also love that this school is so open. It gives the sense of free movement and open spaces for our students to learn in an environment that works best for them. We have also embraced technology in this school, giving teachers multimedia capabilities in all their classrooms.

When you walk through Red Trail, you'll see a much different approach to education, which is shown by the lack of desks, and lots of multimedia centers to facilitate many different learning styles. Speaking to Miranda Christen, First Grade Teacher at Red Trail, she talked about how the school is embracing the next generation in everything they do:

This is thoroughly 21st century school with the ability to teach the next generation of technology without having to adapt with the styles and technology of the last century. This school is so adaptable that we will be able to adjust to any students learning style without leaving any student out.

While the building is complete, there are a few more things to be done with the new school. All landscaping is still needing to be done, but completing the school before the start of the school year was a bigger priority. Check out the photos of the new school below.