After more than a year of learning away from their school, the Gators are coming home.

We are excited to welcome students and staff back to Groff Elementary for the 2026-27 school year. The necessary repairs have been done, and groff is ready to reopen.

To celebrate this important milestone, we invite our entire community to join us on Monday, August 31, beginning at 7 p.m. for a ribbon cutting and community facility tour at Groff Elementary.

This is an opportunity to come back inside Groff, see the work that has been completed throughout the school and celebrate the return of more than 400 students and staff to their school community.

Groff students and staff left the building in March 2025 after concerns with the facility were identified. In April, the district announced that Groff would remain closed while construction deficiencies and  life-safety concerns were addressed and a long-term repair plan was completed.

Since then, approximately $16.5 million in necessary repairs have been completed throughout the building, including structural corrections, electrical system repairs, HVAC repairs and replacement, concrete and stairway repairs, gym floor repairs, sidewalk and drainage repairs, and exterior repairs and landscaping.

Through it all, learning continued. Our students and staff adapted, our families supported them, and schools across our district opened their doors to the Groff community.

Now, we get to welcome the Gators home.

We invite our community for the public ribbon cutting and community tour that will begin at 7 p.m on August 31st at Groff Elementary (1501 S. Moses Lake Avenue).

We have also included a Groff Reopening Fact Sheet with additional information about the work completed, the reopening timeline and the district's ongoing litigation process to recover the entire cost of the necessary repairs.

Thank you to our Groff families, students and staff for their patience, flexibility and resilience throughout this process. We also thank the schools and staff who welcomed Groff students and helped ensure learning continued while their school was being repaired.  We are getting very excited to welcome our students back.  As a reminder, students in grades 1–5 will return to Groff on September 2, with kindergarten students returning September 8 and 9, respectively.

We hope you will join us August 31st as we celebrate this important moment for Groff Elementary and the Moses Lake community.

The Gators are coming home.