News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Pickett County Commissioners and the Pickett County Board of Education remain undecided on the future of Pickett County High School.
County Executive Stephen Bilbrey said though a decision was not made, he still believed Monday’s meeting to be very productive. Bilbrey said the school board was not ready to make a final decision.
“The school board has to kind of be the lead on this so I think they will make a decision in February and present it to the county commission because we want to work together and we do work together,” Bilbrey said. “We get along really well and we just want it to be a joint effort.”
Director of Schools Diane Elder said since the school board has already decided to move forward with renovating the high school bathrooms they wanted to wait before deciding on possibly renovating the entire building.
“That is one thing to me that takes priority over anything else is to get all the pipes in the bathrooms renovated,” Elder said. “And we got that in working order so we don’t have to deal with the issues that we have dealt with in the past. So as far as the rest of it I think we need to take it slow and make sure we dot all of our i’s and cross our t’s in order to make it a smooth process.”
Elder said the school board will work closely with consulting partners for the next few weeks to gather more information about what renovating the high school would look like. Elder said the board will further discuss options at the February 10 school board meeting.
“I think the next step will be deciding if we want to go 100 percent with the renovation and how we want to do that,” Elder said. “If we’re going to do it all at once or if we are going to do that in phases.”
Bilbrey said he believes renovating the high school is still likely the option that will be pursued.
“I really feel that is a consensus of the school board and the county commission from all of the investigative work that the architects and the engineers have done coming up and just going through the building and making sure it is structurally sound,” Bilbrey said. “But you know things could change within the next three weeks.”
Bilbrey said ESG has done several school renovation projects throughout the Upper Cumberland. Bilbrey said since ESG has a good reputation and has helped further along the process the county would likely use ESG for the renovations if that is what is ultimately decided.
