PARIS — Students at the Paris Elementary School will be eating their lunches in a cafeteria with a brand new floor. And instead of carpet, it will be tile.

Just a few days before school began for the new school year on Monday, installers were rushing through the weekend to install tile to the cafeteria floor to replace outdated carpet.

A delay on budget approval and the subsequent the bid process, necessitated the floor project delay, said Facilities Director Dave Marshall as he met with installers from Bridgton Friday morning when the old carpet was lifted up.

The new tiles will be cardinal and a speckled white — the Oxford Hills School District colors — and will be placed in the same pattern as the previous carpet. The white tiles will be the “floor,” and the cardinal tiles will form a border along all four ends. The current square design at each end of the walls will remain using cardinal tiles to form the square, and white tiles for an interior square.

There is a reason for this pattern, Marshall said.

“It makes the kids stay on the inside away from the heaters.” Marshall said the students will enter the cafeteria in a line and walk around the periphery, but away from the heaters on the wall to get their food before being seated on the interior floor.

Because the tile color was not standard, the district had to order from New Jersey. But Marshall said he was very pleased that the contractor from New Hampshire hired a local subcontractor from Bridgton to do the installation.

Installers and custodians were expected to be on the job Friday into the night and Saturday. But the real shine of the floor will not come through until after Monday night when the tile is buffed.

“Then you’ll see the real depth and shine,” Marshall said. He said the districtwide custodians all did an “awesome” job in cleaning and buffing the school buildings and grounds in preparation for the new school year.

Paris Elementary School Principal Jane Fahey said she is looking forward to some 330 students seeing the new floor and starting their first day of class Monday.

The new year at Paris Elementary School includes the introduction of  a new special education teacher, Margaret Templeton, and Sheila Donahue, a new sixth-grade teacher.

“We’re really excited about them. They come really highly qualified,” Fahey said of the teachers’ credentials.

Along with the new staff members, the staff will be implementing several new goals including trying to get more volunteer parents into the school.

“We have the world’s best PTO. These people are phenomenal,” Fahey said of the parent-teacher organization. “But the more adults we have the better the kids will be.”

The first school buses will arrive at the school about 8:30 Monday morning.

“We’re excited. We’re off to a good start for a great opening,” she said.

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