GENTRY — A subcommittee is studying possible locations for a new athletic facility, with current leanings being between the high school auditorium and the football stadium. The sub- committee, consisting of school board members Coye Cripps, Clar- ence Kreger and David Wil- liamson, along with athletic director Brian Little and numer- ous members of the community, met on Aug. 25 with architect Mike Spaeth of Hight Jackson Associates and with a represen- tativeofFlintco,theconstruc- tion management team chosen by the school board at its Aug. 20 meeting.
Randy Barrett, school super- intendent, outlined three of his goals in regard to the proposed construction project before leav- ing the committee to its work:
Communicate to everyone that the proposed multipurpose athletic facility is for the students and the community. The students will benefit, including students currently at the intermediate school campus because they will soon move up to the middle and high school campus.
Communicate to the voters that the school board is asking for no increase in the millage rate for the project. The school election set for Sept. 18 gives voters the option to restructure current bonds to providefundingfortheproject but does not ask for an increase in mills.
Communicate to parents and community that this build- ing, should it be approved and built, is not the end of the school district’s building plans but only a step in the process of updating and improving the district’s facilities. Barrett said that current long-range plans include the building of a new high school and moving the middle school into the current high school building and the intermediate school into the current middle school build- ing. Barrett said the reason a new intermediate school is not being planned with money obtained through restructuring school debt is because a school campus cannot be built for $3 million.
“The multi-purpose facility is just another step in where we are trying to go,” Barrett said.
Barrett said the reason a new high school campus was in the plans rather than building a new intermediateschoolcampuswas because the high school is the final step in preparing students to go out into the world, whether on to college or tech school, to the armed forces, or into the work place. The new Common Core standards now being implement- ed will require more space for the technology which will be used in the new facilitated-learning envi- ronment at the high school level.
Barrett said the building of a new high school campus was probably a minimum of 4 to 5 years out and would require growth in student numbers be- fore it would even be in the plan- ning stages.
Though Barrett said the dis-
trict’s student population num- bers fluctuate much until after Labor Day and aren’t used as an official count until Oct. 1, current numbers were up by about 50 students, going from 1,380 last yearto1,427asofhislatestinfor- mation on Friday.
Numbers were down last year, so the increase represents a positive sign of possible future growth for the district rather than decline.