News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
DeKalb County Director of Schools Patrick Cripps said he is feeling optimistic after the Board of Education held a joint meeting with county commissioners to discuss building a new Smithville Elementary School.
Cripps said the meeting was productive as construction plans were discussed amongst the commissioners. Cripps said he is patiently waiting and the idea of a new elementary school could soon be a reality.
“You know we’ve been talking about it for some time now,” Cripps said. “When you start to build a building I mean they are not cheap so it’s not anything that you just rush into and you go and build it. It’s a process that takes time and you know, everybody’s just got to be patient and everyone’s got to do their due diligence with it.”
The county is considering paying for the construction of the school using a 30-year bond and exploring avenues to pay for the bond without increasing the property tax rate. Cripps said the next step is for the county to acquire funding and then further preliminary planning would take place once funding is acquired.
“They will have to approve the funding for it,” Cripps said. “Then we will just start going and we will get the completions of the drawings and we’ve done a lot of leg work for it already as the board. We’ve done traffic studies and we’ve had some preliminary tests done on the property that we have purchased.”
When the project was first proposed it was estimated to cost around $46 million and has increased to around $53 million. Cripps said it is not shocking that the price of the project has gone up over the years.
“Anytime that it’s a project this big or of this magnitude you know the price going to be high,” Cripps said. “Very seldom do you see things drop from one year to the other so I mean your expectations are unfortunately as time moves on that it will increase.”
Cripps said the current elementary school was built in 1956 and space has become a problem. Cripps said a new elementary school would put all the kids together in the same building.
“We’ve got two second-grade classrooms in another school building,” Cripps said. “They are not with their peers so it gets all the second graders under one house and you know it provides more space.”
