Teachers and staff from the Sarah E. Raymond School of Early Education toured their new home now under construction in Bloomington.
Sarah Raymond School is District 87’s preschool program, currently located on Olive Street in west Bloomington. It is set to move into the Willie G. and Gloria Brown Education Center on Oakland Avenue in time for the 2026-27 school year. While initial estimates from the architectural firm placed costs for the Sarah Raymond remodel at about $17.4 million, District 87 Superintendent David Mouser said the total will be about $13.5 million to 14 million.
“To try to build what we've done here from scratch, you'd be at over $100 million in just construction costs,” added Mouser.
Teachers tour the space
There was plenty of excitement from teachers as they received a tour of the program’s portion of the remodeled building on Oakland.
“I think I'm just pulling things from my old classroom and kind of envisioning where I'm going to put them in the new classrooms, and just seeing the additional space,” said Brie Hoepner, an early childhood special education teacher.
Sarah Raymond's current home is a building with only nine classrooms. Their new home has 20.
“It's a small space,” said paraprofessional Amanda Young. “So everybody's bumping into everybody, and there's not enough room for the things that we need in there. So having a bigger room is going to be amazing.”
Space is one of many things the new building accomplishes. It also has 11 more classrooms, more office space, more security features and a new playground which will be fenced in. It also eliminates problems that come from the current building having multiple floors.
“The kids are going to be so excited,” said Young. “The playground's outside, the fact that they don't have to go up and down the stairs, they have access to so much more with the bigger room they are going to have.”
Sarah Raymond will take up most of the building, with the Bloomington Career Academy [BCA] already moved in and State Farm leasing back part of the building for at least the next three years. District 87 acquired the building from State Farm.
“Envisioning the students in these hallways and in our classrooms has just been so overwhelming, and I just cannot wait,” said Hoepner.
Planning the remodel
The teachers and staff of Sarah Raymond were given a chance to provide feedback on what they wanted to see included in the new space. That feedback was then brought to architects and construction managers to put together plans for the remodel.
Jason Brewer, senior project manager for PJ Hoerr, said construction is on schedule, if not ahead.
“We'll have the majority of the construction completed by the end of June, and then furniture installs will happen in July, and then staff will start coming in and getting in their classrooms and setting stuff up, you know, beginning of August, and then students come in right after that,” said Brewer.
PJ Hoerr has been in charge of the remodel, which started around April 2025. It was also in charge of the BCA remodel.
Mouser said it remains to be seen just how much the students of the BCA interact with or help the students at Sarah Raymond.
He said construction students will help build a small shed in the outdoor playground space. He added culinary students may eventually be able to help make food for the Sarah Raymond side of the building, and that teacher prep program students may also work with the pre-K students there.
“It's stuff like that that we're going to have to be doing continuously, and just trying to provide opportunities for our littles and our bigs to be able to work together, and you get to see education from the beginning to the end, all in one space,” said Mouser.
