MONMOUTH — Students and officials celebrated the start of a state-funded construction project that will replace the town’s middle and grade schools on Tuesday night, using shovels to ceremonially break the ground on which the new school will stand.

The state has agreed to pay for the construction of the 70,000-square-foot facility, which is expected to open in January 2020. The school will be next to Monmouth Academy and educate students from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade.

On hand for the celebration were officials from the town and Regional School Unit 2, the school district that includes Monmouth. State representatives were there, along with students who will benefit from the new building.

“The bids have been awarded, and construction is commencing in the next couple weeks,” said Jim Grandahl, a Monmouth parent who sits on the RSU 2 board of education and heads the district’s school construction committee. “It’s a ceremonial groundbreaking to commemorate this momentous event.”

Monmouth students help break ground on the town’s new middle-elementary school Tuesday. The school, which is expected to open in January 2020, is being mostly funded by the state. (Michelle Rooney/Kennebec Journal)