FIVE-YEAR CAPITAL PROJECTS* Land for third middle schoolEstimated cost: 40 acres, average $10,000/acreTimetable: Immediate* Construction of third middle school with shared gymEstimated cost: $17 millionTimetable: Begin 2012, open fall of 2013* Lake Forest Middle School improvementsEstimated cost: $4 million with traditional HVAC; $4.8 million with geothermal; $1.5 million optional improvementsTimetable: 2011-12* Eight-classroom pod at Walker Valley High SchoolEstimated cost: $2 millionTimetable: 2011-12* Land for elementary in south Bradley CountyEstimated cost: 20 acres, average $10,000/acreTimetable: Immediate* Construction of south Bradley elementaryEstimated cost: $12 millionTimetable: 2015-16, open fall 2016* Land for North Elementary SchoolEstimated cost: 20 acres, average $10,000/acreTimetable: Early as possibleSource: Bradley County Schools
CLEVELAND, Tenn. — An additional middle school tops the needs list for Bradley County Schools in a five-year capital projects list that county school board members approved Thursday night.
The recommendations, compiled by Director of Schools Johnny McDaniel and the central office staff, now goes to the County Commission’s Education Committee.
The total cost for immediate projects is $8.8 million, said school board Chairman Troy Weathers.
Deciding which projects get priority is “a hard decision,” McDaniel told the board. “But the electorate put you here to make these kinds of decisions.”
Growth is inevitable, said board member Vicki Beaty, and the wave of industrial locations and expansions under way or to come will only spur that growth.
Amazon.com has said it is building 1 million-square-foot distribution centers in Bradley and Hamilton counties. Volkswagen is nearing completion of its $1 billion auto assembly plant in Hamilton County and Wacker Chemical is building a $1.48 billion plant in northern Bradley County.
The list of recommendations is based on the December 2010 report from a yearlong Bradley/Cleveland/Charleston growth study and population trends in county schools. The study looks forward to 2035.
A 1995 report projected 10,920 enrolled students by 2030. But the county system passed 10,000 students about three years ago, said Sharon Harper, former principal of North Lee Elementary School and now an academic data analyst/testing coordinator.
Harper said the current projection is 14,419 by 2035, but that could undershoot actual growth.
Weathers said that, with additions at existing elementary schools in past years and the opening of Park View Elementary School this year, the county has a couple of years of breathing space at the elementary level.
An immediate priority is acquiring land for a third middle school. School officials already are talking with landowners near Walker Valley High School, the preferred site for the next middle school.
That would serve the north end of the county while Lake Forest Middle School serves the south end, board members said.
Ocoee Middle School, a county school in the city, could be a feeder school for both Bradley Central and Walker Valley high schools, McDaniel said. And there would be other possibilities for Ocoee Middle, he said, including a magnet school.
But sometime in the future the county will need another high school, Weathers said.
“Today is the time to buy more property,” Weathers said. “Property values have gone down.”
McDaniel said it’s his responsibility to provide space for an expanding population of students. Without new buildings, he will have no choice but to ask for portable classrooms, he said.
Board member Richard Baker said that after he retired from the U.S. Navy, his family searched the entire United States before moving to Bradley County.
“My first seven or eight years, nobody knew about this place. This was heaven. Now the bad news for the natives: We have been discovered,” Baker said.