{"recordId":"st_z6lppi0q78knaccp","canonicalUrl":"https://sotwire.com/stories/american-leadership-academy-monroe-expansion-opens-hayco","jsonUrl":"https://sotwire.com/stories/american-leadership-academy-monroe-expansion-opens-hayco/record","slug":"american-leadership-academy-monroe-expansion-opens-hayco","headline":"American Leadership Academy opens new classrooms and a gym in Monroe, a Hayco project","dek":"The K-8 charter school cut the ribbon on July 16, 2026, ahead of an Aug. 3 first day. Its engineer, Langan, says the work added 22 classrooms, offices and a gymnasium \"to better serve 1,100 students.\"","articleBody":"American Leadership Academy of Monroe spent a school year building. On Thursday, July 16, 2026, the K-8 public charter school cut the ribbon on the result: new classrooms, a gymnasium, and a kitchen inside the gym where students can get hot meals.\n\nHayco Construction, a commercial contractor based in Pilot Mountain, calls the expansion its project, and Langan, the engineering firm that designed the site work, lists Hayco as its client. Students were scheduled to start using the new space on Aug. 3, the first day of the 2026-27 school year, the Enquirer Journal of Monroe reported.\n\nHayco showed the job in progress on Feb. 10, 2026. Its photos showed a two-story classroom building going up beside a larger building. The company described the larger one as \"a multipurpose facility sporting a gymnasium as well as a dining hall with a kitchen.\"\n\nLangan's project page puts numbers to it: 22 classrooms, administrative offices and a gymnasium on the 29-acre campus, \"to better serve 1,100 students.\" None of the public accounts gave the project's cost or the size of the new buildings in square feet.\n\nLangan says its own work included stormwater management, grading, utility design and a geotechnical study of the soil beneath the site. The school is overseen by Charter One, the paper says, and Langan names Charter One Development as a strategic partner on the project.\n\nBridget Jones, the school's director, spoke to the crowd before the ribbon cutting. \"It creates a space for more students to experience … having education with a purpose,\" Jones said of the expansion.\n\nAbigail Strait, Charter One's vice president of PK-12 operations, told the paper what the space will add. \"We're really excited about the increase in extracurriculars that we'll be able to offer with this space,\" Strait said. \"We'll be able to expand athletics and eventually grow a fine arts program at the junior high level too, so that we can put on concerts and things like that in the gym.\"","category":"project_win","categoryLabel":"Projects","location":"Monroe, NC","company":{"name":"Hayco Construction","domain":"hayco-construction.com"},"sample":false,"sampleDisclaimer":null,"publishedAt":"2026-07-17T16:25:00.000Z","updatedAt":"2026-10-23T04:12:44.688Z","badge":"Desk reported","trust":{"level":"desk_reported","doctrine":"Sotwire verifies who at the company stood behind the submission. It does not independently certify every underlying company claim as true.","verifies":"which named Sotwire editor wrote this from the cited sources","doesNotCertify":"independent truth of every claim","badge":"Desk reported","verificationMethod":"Named Sotwire editor, from the cited sources. Not a company attestation, and not an independent fact-check of every sentence.","domainChecked":false},"attestation":{"attested":false},"confirmation":null,"facts":[{"label":"School","value":"American Leadership Academy of Monroe, a K-8 public charter school"},{"label":"Overseen by","value":"Charter One (per the Enquirer Journal)"},{"label":"Contractor","value":"Hayco Construction, Pilot Mountain, NC"},{"label":"Site engineer","value":"Langan, which lists Hayco as its client"},{"label":"Strategic partner","value":"Charter One Development (per Langan)"},{"label":"Campus","value":"29 acres"},{"label":"Added space (per Langan)","value":"22 classrooms, administrative offices and a gymnasium, \"to better serve 1,100 students\""},{"label":"New facilities (per the Enquirer Journal)","value":"Classrooms, a gymnasium, and a kitchen inside the gym for hot meals"},{"label":"Buildings (per Hayco, Feb. 10, 2026)","value":"A two-story classroom building beside a multipurpose building with a gymnasium and a dining hall with a kitchen"},{"label":"Langan's scope","value":"Stormwater management, utility design, grading, erosion and sediment control, geotechnical study, landscape design"},{"label":"Construction period","value":"The 2025-26 school year"},{"label":"Not in public accounts","value":"Project cost; size of the new buildings in square feet"}],"keyEvents":[{"date":"2026-02-10","label":"Hayco posted progress photos of the expansion"},{"date":"2026-07-16","label":"The school held a ribbon cutting for the expansion"},{"date":"2026-07-17","label":"The Enquirer Journal reported the opening"},{"date":"2026-08-03","label":"Students were scheduled to start using the new space"}],"sources":[{"url":"https://enquirerjournal.com/enquirer_journal/ala-monroe-expanding-opportunities-one-new-space-at-a-time/article_7ef8d8b4-bae5-5849-ba31-27df174d11b1.html","title":"ALA Monroe expanding opportunities one new space at a time","publisher":"The Enquirer Journal (Michael Wayne O'Neill), Jul 17, 2026"},{"url":"https://www.langan.com/portfolio/american-leadership-academy","title":"American Leadership Academy (portfolio project)","publisher":"Langan"},{"url":"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hayco-construction-llc_education-institutional-commercialconstruction-activity-7427006161222299648-7v8g","title":"Exciting updates at our project with American Leadership Academy in Monroe, North Carolina","publisher":"Hayco Construction on LinkedIn, Feb 10, 2026"},{"url":"https://hayco-construction.com/inside-the-build-american-leadership-academys-new-campus-in-monroe-nc/","title":"American Leadership Academy Monroe Campus Expansion: Project Overview","publisher":"Hayco Construction"}],"source":{"url":"https://enquirerjournal.com/enquirer_journal/ala-monroe-expanding-opportunities-one-new-space-at-a-time/article_7ef8d8b4-bae5-5849-ba31-27df174d11b1.html","publisher":"Hayco Construction","publishedAt":"2026-07-17T13:19:00.000Z"},"cover":{"url":"https://sotwire.com/covers/american-leadership-academy-monroe-expansion-opens-hayco.webp","alt":"American Leadership Academy opens new classrooms and a gym in Monroe, a Hayco project","provenance":"unknown","provenanceLabel":"Unknown origin","credit":null},"images":[{"id":"med_v8h0dpqf07r83fbm","url":"https://pub-ec2c7475154f4c22ba3162ee6eef7802.r2.dev/wire/hayco-construction.com/obj_n8m1mns1eednvjsn-1770736254271","alt":"Aerial view of a school campus with a white building, a yellow-sheathed building and the red steel frame of a new two-story building, with an ALA Charter School Expansion Project Progress Update banner.","caption":"An aerial progress photo of the American Leadership Academy expansion in Monroe, with steel framing up on a new building, posted by Hayco Construction on Feb. 10, 2026.","credit":"Photo: Hayco Construction","lead":true,"provenance":"unknown","filename":"1770736254271"}],"provenanceMethod":"EXIF, XMP, and filename heuristic. 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