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GoogleThe school system has just opened two new schools, Learning Way Elementary and a new Community High School, and in recent years built a new Harris Middle School and expanded Central High School. But Gray told Bedford County Board of Education Thursday night that the most recent enrollment at Cascade High School, including middle school grades, at 842.
"We have to have a school at Cascade, due to those numbers," said Gray.
Gray told the Times-Gazette that the building has a rated capacity of only 700 students.
A new high school, serving only grades 9-12, would be located on expansion property the county already owns near the opposite corner from the current school. The existing building would then become a dedicated middle school.
Cascade has 479 students in grades 9-12, compared to 445 at the brand new Community High School and 1,169 at the recently-expanded Central High School.
Gray said he believes a new high school should be built before a new jail, another need which has been expressed recently to county commissioners.
School board member Diane Neeley said the southern end of the county should not be overlooked and noted the number of portable classrooms being used for middle school classrooms at Liberty School. Gray agreed that new capacity is needed at Liberty as well.
School board members said it may be time for an update of the school system's 10-year construction plan. The county school system saw rapid growth over the past decade, although it has slowed somewhat in the past year or two.
Meanwhile, despite the new elementary school capacity in Shelbyville due to the opening of Learning Way, Gray said that portables now in place should be left at their current locations until the school system has a specific need for them somewhere else. He said moving them would cost $16,000 per classroom, and selling them would not bring much income either.
"We need to move them for a purpose," said Gray.
Architect John Davis reported that a few remaining "punch list" items at both Learning Way and Community will be worked on while schools are closed for the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration. He said the back entrance to the new Community High School has been paved but should not be opened to traffic until after the Celebration break, so that it has time to cure.
"That'll be a big help to our traffic situation," said Davis.
The board held its meeting in the new Community High School library.
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I have all the respect in the world for Mr. Gray. He has always kept the BOE and students first and foremost.
In this case however, I sense a true conflict of interest. If he were an employee of a private company he would have to recuse himself from any/all voting and lobbying for his company when it came to expenditure of public funds.
I have kids and I think schools are very important. However we just taxed our borrowing power to death on the projects that were just completed. And now we need more?
The county needs to come to terms that something is going to have to be done about the jail and workhouse as well. There is no way around that, it's just a matter of time, probably past time.
Are we going to wait and be forced into that by some lawsuit again or do we have better foresight than that?
Come on guys gotta think down the road a little further. As much as we all dislike it the inmate population is something that is going to be here and will only rise.
Having known Ed Gray since he was in grammar school; I don't think he needs to excuse himself from anything. He will report the situations truthfully and give his honest opinion to all aspects of the situation.
I do agree with Mrs. Neeley that Liberty needs a middle school. I feel that if a middle/high school was built for Liberty that the overcrowded problem at most of the schools would be solved. There are kids that are attending Community & Cascade Middle/High Schools that if Liberty had a high school they would be attending it.
The county already owns the property for Liberty and we already have all the sport faculities. My vote is to build a LIBERTY HIGH SCHOOL!!!!!
I'm having a little trouble believing that EVERY school in our county needs more room or needs to be new! This sounds a like a jealousy issue to me.You got a popcicle so I won't one too....
We were just told that we had no money to spend on anything. We can't even staff the new EMS center or give our county employees a cost of living raise(for the 2nd year) and yet we should try to come up with millions of dollars for more schools?
I'm all for education,but you can learn just as well from a good teacher in a barn as you can in any million dollar school.
Maybe we need to take a closer look at our commissoners in the next election and get away from the ones we've got now! FOOD FOR THOUGHT
While I agree with Chuck1964 that it seems impossible that every school needs more room or needs something new, I find it even more remarkable that Community now has it's third building in approximately 5-7 years and schools such as Liberty haven't even been recognized until now.
I also am trying to figure out why it has taken Mrs. Neeley until now to speak up for her own district's school building???
I guess the positive is that our student's at Liberty continue to be high achievers and performers regardless of their physical settings (and the lack of interest from the board)! God bless our teachers and parents that make that happen!
I BELIEVE THE SCHOOLS ARE FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN A JAIL. I HAVE 3 KIDS,MY OLDEST SON ATTENDS HARRIS AND MY DAUGHTER ATTENDS EASTSIDE. MY DAUGHTER HAS SPENT EVERY YEAR AT EASTSIDE IN A PORTABLE CLASSROOM UNTIL NOW. SHE FINALLY HAS CLASS INSIDE THE BUILDING. THE SCHOOLS SHOULD COME FIRST BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE. THE MORE ROOM THERE IS THE MORE ATTENTION EACH STUDENT WILL RECIEVE. I KNOW ALOT OF PEOPLE WHO DROPPED OUT OF HIGHSCHOOL JUST BECAUSE THEY WERE LOST IN THE CROWD AND WERE OVERLOOKED DUE TO THE OVERCROWDED CLASSES. NO WONDER THE INMATE POPULATION RISES.
You can call it jealousy or lobbying or anything you want, the fact of the matter is the numbers don't lie.
842 students in a school rated for 700. That's 20% over capacity. I'm surprised the fire marshal hasn't closed the school. Community has 445 students and a new school and Cascade has 479 with the old one. The property is there and ready so let's build it. You can build the exact same school Community just built and save thousands of dollars by using the same blueprints and design. You also know the exact cost to build.
What everyone seems to be forgetting is that our county jail is legally overcrowded right now. If we (the county as a whole) start a planned construction now, perhaps we can avoid a couple of million dollars in civil judgment PLUS having to build something in an immediate timeframe (always more expensive) as opposed to a planned construction over time.
The last time the jail was deemed "overcrowded" (in the legal definition) it cost the county several MILLION dollars in judgment (call that a fine) plus the cost of new jail construction, another several MILLION, plus the cost of managing that debt. I forget what the exact percentage was, but it raised our property taxes significantly.
Not having a new school or delaying construction costs zero dollars. I realize that in a perfect world we could do both. But we can't. The reality is that our jail population is growing faster than our school population and prisoners have more "rights" than our children. Sad but true....
I checked on Liberty's population the other day. They have +/- 649 kids enrolled. The building was designed (with the current floor plan) for 725. I'm told they have three empty classrooms in the main building and two empty ones in the portables. The enforcement of zoning shrunk Liberty's student population.
While I agree with Chuck1964 that it seems impossible that every school needs more room or needs something new, I find it even more remarkable that Community now has it's third building in approximately 5-7 years and schools such as Liberty haven't even been recognized until now.
I also am trying to figure out why it has taken Mrs. Neeley until now to speak up for her own district's school building???
I guess the positive is that our student's at Liberty continue to be high achievers and performers regardless of their physical settings (and the lack of interest from the board)! God bless our teachers and parents that make that happen!
-- Posted by Farmgirl67 on Mon, Aug 24, 2009, at 5:49 AM
I feel I must respond to this post. I have in the past and will continue in the future to put the needs of Liberty on the table. There is a big difference between what we want and what is feasible for us to have. With that being said let me explain how school buildings are decided. Buildings are built based on student enrollment numbers. Cascade and Community are already established high schools. Community School's student population exceeded allowable numbers so they were prioritized as needing the next building. Cascade has now exceeded their capacity and we will need to begin to look at options for them........Mr. Gray did not say we are building within the year.......what we discussed is that we need to go back to the drawing board, see where we are and revise our 10 year plan. What I said at the meeting is while we want a high school at Liberty at this time due to portables we will need to look at a Middle School. Preliminary numbers for this year so far in MIDDLE SCHOOL (grades 6-8)at Liberty is 210. If you take an average of this enrollment you could say 70 students per class and that is roughly what comes from Liberty each year to be dispersed to the three high schools. Also bare in mind that some of Liberty's students decide to attend Moore County High and Forrest in Chapel Hill due to where they live. At this point it is not feasible to build a high school for around 300 students or less.......I already know the argument....but we can add some kids from the south end of the county and this will ease Central.....not necessarily depending on where the students are going and the actual number that went to Central. Another point we have to look at even if there is funding for the building~ we must fully staff the school, plus new books, desks, etc, etc.........this is very costly whereas to date we are moving teachers, moving books, moving technology......not buying all new or newly staffing an entire school. While I would love to see a high school at Liberty I think it is still going to be a while before this happens. A high school for Liberty is in the 10 year plan that was developed a couple of years ago....before the Middle School had to go into portables so now the pressing need I see is getting out of portables and into a building.
I am trying to be a good steward of our tax dollars and Bedford County has many needs. While I WANT to see a new school at Liberty I have to be conscious of HOW we will pay for it and I have to be able to justify the cost to myself and the taxpayers. Farmgirl67 I encourage you to check around with my fellow board members, Mr. Gray and others in our community and then accuse me of not having taken Liberty's needs to the table.
Diane Neeley
4th District
Farmgirl67,
I agree with you 100%,I also wonder alot about other issues that are swept under the carpet?
Oh but you got to give her some credit,she did get air condtiting in the gym.Oh what a life saver that was.
I may have wanted or voted for her the last time,but voting her back in the next time would be worst then bringing Geo.Bush back in office.
Maybe in 5 years after her daughter graduates high school,she will quit on her own in the board of Education.( chances of that will be equal to the Devil going to Heaven)
I am so glad that I do not have any children attending Bedford County Schools. Because of all the do as I say and not as I do rules,,,,,,,,,
Sir Jim,
Come on give me a break,maybe if these inmates had a better education.They would not be in jail in the first place.
In the old days when parents could disaplin their children,you didn't see as many inmates.
And back then an 8th grade education was great, then time passed and a high school education was all you needed. Now if you don't go further in schooling, you might get a job flipping burgers.
I feel like getting a new school is in the best interest then an up dated or bigger jail.,,,,,
Wheelbillie,
I do agree with you 100% and I think that taking away discipline was one of the wost mistakes ever made. When I was in school I feared the teacher, now it seems to be the other way around.
I am not against schools in any way. Like I said I have children and want the best education in the best facilities possible.
But the problem remains that the county has an inmate population that continues to grow and we have to address the issue one way or another. I just think we should make the decision before it is made for us. It's not the inmates that I worry about. It's the people that have to deal with it and our county who has to foot the bill for it.
We have to educate our children, there is little to discuss there, but we also need to protect them at the same time. Would we rather some of these guys be locked up or turned loose amongst or kids?
Cascade is the only school in the county that is still in its original building (excluding the elementary). I don't understand how Community got a new school before Cascade if Cascade had more students.