Celina K-8 The Focus of Latest Round Of Federal Funding

The Clay County Board of Education discussed three ideas to use ESSER 3.0 funding during a Thursday work session.

Option 1: a middle school addition onto the high school.

Option 2: new bathrooms and layout changes to free up space at Celina K-8

Option 3. a new gym for either Celina K-8 or Clay County High School.

However Board Chairman Benji Bailey said with an August 27 deadline coming, the board needs to narrow its focus on what is feasible.

“The K-8’s getting a lot of attention here but that’s just because that’s where the crowding problems are,” Bailey said. “It’s crowded again in the kitchen, we’re running out of classroom space there.”

The Clay County Board of Education will meet on this topic again on August 10.

Bailey said that based on the expected costs, funding is not at a level to support an addition to the high school. He said a cost estimate was done on this scenario.

“That kind of pulled us back from that scenario,” Bailey said. “Not saying it’s out of the ballpark because we don’t know what ESSER 4.0 could be or will be.”

Bailey said the auxiliary gym portion of option three did open up possibilities for the system’s future. He said that if a gym was added for the high school it could serve the future middle school addition.

“The thing with the high school is if you consider putting it there it kind of eases you into potentially when we do get this money paid off, the current outstanding debt,” Bailey said. “If you wanted to build at that point a new addition to the high school for 7-8 grade, you’ve got your auxiliary gym there and you can just tie that in. That does present problems, we know that. It wouldn’t be ideal, wouldn’t fix all the issues with the K-8.”

Bailey started the work session by presenting the system’s outstanding debt total of $3.77 million for athletic upgrades at the high school.

Bailey and Director of Schools Matt Eldridge both stressed that the time to present ideas on how to spend ESSER 3.0 is not over. The Clay County Board of Education will meet on August 10 and the public is invited to attend and share their ideas.