Jackson Director Of Schools Expecting CTE Plans In Coming Days

The Jackson County School Board should have designs plans for a new career and technical education building in the coming days.

Jackson County Director of Schools Jason Hardy told the school board on Thursday an architect will be getting plans to him for the new high school facility. The building will have four shops for classrooms.

“There’s just two different ways of doing that,” Hardy said. “We just talked about things what we could and what we couldn’t do. We looked at putting a basement for storage, and it sky rocketed. Looking at probably just the regular building we were talking about.”

Hardy is looking for TCAT Livingston’s support in expanding the schools CTE program. Hardy had previously expressed concern over the support Jackson County would receive from TCAT after the Livingston-Crossville merger. Hardy said he recently talked to TCAT administration unofficially, and it was a “good conversation.”

Hardy said it will be up to the board which of the two directions to go. Depending on which design the board picks, Hardy said the architect can determine a timeline.

“The plan is to find which one of these we like,” Hardy said. “Get rolling with the bid process and hopefully break ground. That kind of depends on what route we go with the timeline. It could be as quick as a year and a half, which is really pushing it I think but that’d be great, up to two and half to three years if we want to look at certain things.”

Once the project begins, Hardy said he has asked for regular updates.

“He’s also going to give me a timeline of each one of them,” Hardy said. “That way I can bring them to you and be like alright here is what is going to happen in December. That’s what I asked him to do. I’d like to be able to tell you all what our plans are, we’re breaking ground in February or March or whatever. So he’s going to do that to at least the best of his ability. When he gets that information to me I’ll pass that along to you all.”