Elementary students check into former hotel for classes

HYDE PARK, Vt. – While their school is being renovated, Vermont elementary students will get their education in a very different location- a former hotel.

Vermont Public Radio reports that students in kindergarten through fifth grade at Hyde Park Elementary are being taught in the Plaza Hotel, a former strip mall hotel.

Some classes are crammed into hotel rooms with no space for desks. There’s also no playground. But the second graders in Karen Anderson’s classroom say they like having air conditioning and a mini fridge in their classroom.

Principal Diane Reilly says it’s an improvement over the crumbling school building.

Last year, the same former hotel served as a temporary courthouse while the Lamoille County Courthouse underwent renovations.