Jim Hawkins is the Dalton Public Schools SuperintendentDALTON, Ga. — After committees spent part of the summer studying three options to solve overcrowding at Dalton Middle School, school board members chose to look into a just-proposed fourth option of building a multipurpose building at the middle school.
Superintendent Jim Hawkins outlined the new scenario at a school board work session Monday evening, and board members agreed to hire architects to study the proposal.
The change came after Hawkins presented statistics to show Whitfield County’s annual birth rate dropped by about 400 births in two years, going from 1,950 births in 2007 to 1,508 in 2009.
“It could be that we start seeing some fall off in enrollment,” he said. “This would be a win-win situation that would not leave us with too many classrooms and a facility we could use.”
Earlier this summer, board members had said they favored changing Park Creek School, an elementary school with about 700 students, into a sixth-grade academy.
Park Creek students, parents and teachers vigorously protested that option so the school system also studied converting City Park School into a prekindergarten through eighth-grade school and moving all sixth-graders from the middle school back into elementary schools.
The fourth option now being considered would be a build a multipurpose building at the middle school campus that could be used for classrooms and dining space. If enrollment decreased, that space would be converted to an auditorium.
The building would cost about what other options had been, between $5 million and $9 million, Hawkins said.
Board Chairman Steve Williams told those at the meeting a fourth option doesn’t mean the other three have been eliminated.
“This doesn’t say we can’t go back and consider other proposals, but we have put on the back burner any other alternatives,” he said.
Board members are moving more slowly with the proposal after rescinding a resolution last week that would have placed a 1 percent sales tax referendum on the ballot in November. The money would have been used to build any new buildings.
The board agreed to wait a year to ask for a sales tax, while the county places a 1 percent sales tax on the ballot this November.
Monday night, the board discussed when it would call for another 1 percent sales tax. Three election dates next year are in February, July and November, with the tax implemented several months later.
Board member Danny Crutchfield said placing the referendum on the ballot in February would go back on the board’s promise to wait a year.
“I think that is a bad call; we told people we are going to wait a year,” he said.
But board member Rick Fromm argued the board only promised not to double up the tax. If the county tax does not pass in November, the board could move ahead on its tax, he said.
The board did not make a final decision on when to place the tax on the ballot.
In other business, the board voted to leave the millage rate unchanged at 7.845 mills.
Contact staff writer Mariann Martin at mmartin@timesfreepress.com or 706-980-5824.