A new proposal by School Board Member Ben Connor, D-Chattanooga, and Hamilton County Commissioner David Sharpe, D-Red Bank, would keep an elementary school within Red Bank’s city limits.
Their recommendation suggests building a new elementary school on the shared campus of Red Bank Middle and Red Bank High. If the high school’s football field and the practice field had artificial turf, a new building could be built on the two practice fields on the other side of the building, Connor said.
“I think it has been made abundantly clear that the people in this community desire to have an elementary school in the city of Red Bank,” Sharpe said during a news conference. “Though I applaud the mayor and superintendent for initially bringing forth the new facilities plan for all of Hamilton County, it fell a bit short for addressing the desires and needs of this community.”
Red Bank — one of the main political bases in Sharpe and Connor’s district — has clashed with Hamilton County officials over the potential closure of the only public elementary school within city limits since the August release of the school facilities plan.
(READ MORE: Updated Hamilton County school facilities plan calls for campus closures and expansion)
Since Red Bank Elementary is in Chattanooga, closing Alpine Crest would leave the city without a public elementary school.
Last week, Superintendent Justin Robertson released an updated school facilities plan that recommended combining Alpine Crest, Rivermont and DuPont elementary schools at either the existing DuPont elementary site in Hixson or the former Red Bank Middle site on Dayton Boulevard. Extra capacity at Red Bank and Hixson elementary schools would be used to keep the school’s population between 650 and 800 students.
The projected cost of building a new elementary school is $35-40 million.
Red Bank Mayor Hollie Berry also presented the school board last week with the city’s proposal to contribute $1 million toward the construction of a new elementary school within the city on any site other than the former Red Bank Middle site. It named the current Red Bank Middle and High school campus as an option.
(READ MORE: Red Bank and Hamilton County Schools continue to clash over new elementary school site)
Sharpe and Connor said their proposal would meet the needs most expressed by community members: keeping an elementary school within Red Bank, maintaining a consistent feeder pattern to Red Bank Middle and High schools and ensuring students attend schools in the district where they live.
“One of the reasons I’m getting so excited about it is it’s not just about a new building. We can get a new building in a lot of different locations,” Connor said during the news conference. “This is about an educational opportunity to truly share in the wealth of one property.”
He added that the shared campus would ease existing mentoring programs between Red Bank High students and local elementary schools.
Some Red Bank commissioners expressed support for the proposal at a meeting Tuesday night.
“There’s a lot to like about, kind of, the idea of an educational complex,” Commissioner Hayes Wilkinson said. “I think that’s pretty cool.”
An agreement regarding city-owned forested land on the other side of Tom Weathers Drive could be reached between the city and school system to preserve forest education opportunities, Connor said. Alpine Crest Elementary launched a forest kindergarten class in the fall.
The campus’s traffic patterns and utilities would also need to be looked at in order to make sure this proposal works, he said.
The City Commission intends to host a special meeting to gather community input in early January before the next school board meeting Jan. 18. The school board will have a facilities meeting at 4 p.m. Jan. 4.
Contact Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.
Staff photo by Olivia Ross / Hamilton County Commissioner David Sharpe, right, speaks alongside Hamilton County School Board Member Ben Connor as they present a new proposal addressing school facility needs in Red Bank on Tuesday.