DeKalb Receives Four Land Proposals For New School

Four individuals have submitted proposals to sell land for a new elementary school in DeKalb County.

Director of Schools Patrick Cripps said the school board meets next week to study the proposals.

“We’re going to have to look at what is going to be cost effective,” Cripps said. “I mean, there’s properties where dirt is going to have to be pushed, and that’s very expensive when you have to start moving dirt. So, we’ll just have to compare cost per acre and what it’s going to cost to push the dirt.”

All four properties were within five miles of city limits and ranged in size from 25 to 200-acres. Cripps said school board members will not be limited to just those four properties.

“If we see that it’s not going to meet our needs, we will go back and either do more RFP’s or start looking for more land,” Cripps said.

The board began accepting the latest round of RFP’s last month. The advertisement stated that ideal land would be 25-100 acres inside city limits or within five miles of the city.

“We’d like to get it (the project) going. We’ve been talking about it for a year and a half and we’ve finally got the school that we want to build,” Cripps said. “Now the task will be finding the property that we want to sit it on.”

The new school building would replace Smithville Elementary. The board of education meets Thursday, October 10 to discuss the proposals.