NEENAH, Wis. — The back-to-school season is here. Neenah Joint School District officials unveiled the new multimillion-dollar high school at a public dedication ceremony Sunday.

A large crowd was on site to take a tour of Neenah High School. The total cost of the new school was about $171 million dollars.

The school is over 460,000 square feet. More than 2,000 students are expected to attend when school starts on Sept. 5.

As the clock ticks down to the first day of school, school officials and teachers are making last-minute preparations.

Teacher Steve Chauvin's shop classroom was silent on Sunday. He said that'll drastically change soon.

“Everything from the old school was so small and outdated. This is state of the art,” Chauvin said.

Chauvin said there's still a long list of "to-dos" for his welding and metal fabrication classroom, which has added pressure to his first-day plans. 

“Right now, [I am] a little overwhelmed because I don't know the flow and how it's going to operate and finding places for each piece of equipment that we have,” Chauvin said.

Yet, in a few weeks time, he said, it'll be a new-normal. 

Chauvin said the last-minute stresses are worth it; he said at the old high school, his students' learning was stifled. Now, he said they can thrive in a high-tech environment.

“So you couldn't really let your imagination run too wild, because you couldn't build it. So here we can; we have the room”, Chauvin said.

Chauvin said he is especially thrilled with the school's modern upgrades.

“We have a formal fume collection, which we didn't have. We have industry-leading machines; the students are going to be able to use the same thing here as is being used in industry today," he said.

Getting students up to speed didn't happen overnight. Plans for this high school started in 2016.

Jim Strick, Neenah Joint School District communications director, said a lot of organizing went into the school's design. He said he thinks students will enjoy the flexible learning spaces. 

“We've got plenty of seating and work areas in the hallways themselves. Whiteboards in the hallways, too," Strick said. "The classrooms have sliding open doors where they can move students into the hallway if needed."

There is also a sensory room for students with special needs. 

Strick said learning has evolved and so should educational facilities. He said he hopes teachers, students and parents reap the full benefits from this contemporary high school.

“To be able to have the students of our community come through here and to be able to learn in an environment like this — it's just hard to even measure that,” Strick said.