The budget knife is trimming Walker County’s planned K-8 school in Rock Spring, Ga.,taking out about 11,000 square feet of interior space to make the project fit available funding.
Chris Jones, the school system’s administrative services director, said the design was reduced from 123,000 square feet to 112,000 so it would stay within the project’s $12 million to $16 million budget.
Unlike Walker’s nine K-5 schools, the new one also will house sixth, seventh and eighth grades.
The site is a $1.2 million, 95-acre plot about halfway between Chickamauga and LaFayette. It is the last project in the present education special purpose local option sales tax cycle, and the last project in the system’s five-year building plan, officials said.
System spokeswoman Elaine Womack said a recent school board visit to Whitfield County’s new Cedar Ridge Elementary School will play into the design revisions.
Cedar Ridge is designed around Whitfield’s project-based approach to teaching, a methodology that has drawn Walker officials’ interest. Cedar Ridge’s 530 students are sorted into red, blue, green and yellow pods, or “houses.” Each has its own multipurpose space and an open design. Whitfield officials said the design fosters student interaction and allows different classes to work together and share resources.
Ms. Womack said some of those ideas will be incorporated into the redesign.
Neuhoff Taylor Architects President Pat Neuhoff said some features Walker officials saw at Cedar Ridge and other regional schools will make the most of available space.
Mr. Neuhoff said the redesign will transform hallway space into multipurpose rooms to allow for interaction between classes, “especially for project-based learning where they might put students from math and science classes together for a project.”
He said the multiuse idea also will involve the cafeteria, because students don’t use that space for the whole school day.
The school board is scheduled to see the redesigned plan on April 13 at 7 p.m. in Walker’s Science and Technology Center.