Dalton school officials continue discussions on expansion

Published 10:31 pm Saturday, September 20, 2014

Administrators for Dalton Public Schools said last week that new options are being considered and no decision is imminent regarding the district’s plan to address projected capacity concerns with its secondary schools.

The discussion has been ongoing about how to best shift students from a middle school already at capacity — according to internal calculations — and a high school projected to reach its full mark within the next few years.

Dalton Public Schools formed a volunteer study group — comprised of community members, teachers and administrators — that met during the summer to sort through various options, and administrative staff and school board members have met for a pair of work sessions (in July and August) to further the talks.

Though a majority of board members asked during the most recent work session for  administrators to take a more focused look at the concept of a 6-12 grade, non-comprehensive school, officials stress several options are still being considered.

“Right now, I would say we started with two ideas — the 6-12 school, or an option of a new 9-12 facility, with Park Creek Elementary serving 5-6 grades only and Roan Elementary serving pre-k-4 — that came from the study group, talked through those two, and now are probably back to discussing about four or five different ideas,” said Superintendent Jim Hawkins.

Said Danny Crutchfield, school board chairman: “We haven’t found a solution yet. There is not one, obvious answer.”

The option most often discussed in public meetings has been the 6-12 grade school that would include within it the programs of Morris Innovative High School — finding new facilities for Morris is a third goal of the board, in addition to solving capacity issues at Dalton Middle School and Dalton High School. In the most popular version of the plan, the school would have an attendance zone, yet would not be a fully comprehensive facility — while it would share the same core curriculum, there would not be certified athletics and it would feature different extracurricular programs than those at Dalton High School. Administrators haven’t decided what types of programs and extracurricular offerings would be provided.

Members of the board have expressed some support for the idea, because it solves each of the three issues facing the district.

It would, however, require an estimated $70 million. Those funds, likely, would come from a combination of bonds, ESPLOST (education special purpose local option sales tax) dollars and a property tax rate increase.

In the most recent board work session on Aug. 28, Steve Laird expressed hesitation to support a project that costly, and asked administrators to look for any and all possible alternatives in the range of $30 million to $40 million.

According to Hawkins, these are some of the concepts that will be discussed when the board meets again for a facilities discussion during a work session on Monday, Oct. 6. The time has not been publicized.

Following their most recent session, board members were nearly unanimous in their preference of the 6-12 option — at least in concept, with more details to be crystallized — opening up the possibility for reaching a tentative agreement as early as next month.

Board members, though, are still far from solidifying plans, Hawkins said last week.

“This is going to impact our district for a really long time. We have to do it well and we have to take as long as it takes to do it the right way,” he said. “We did think the quickest we thought we could get this done is by December — assuming we could come to an agreement and begin talking with the public. But, at this point, I do not see that being possible.”