Last fall, the Clarke County School Board received a petition with 800 signatures calling for solar panels to be installed on the new Clarke Middle School. Unfortunately, the contract for building the school was bid out years ago, said John Gilbreath, director of ESPLOST projects, when solar wasn’t being discussed. There isn’t money in the building’s budget to pay for solar panels, he said.
The school board has appointed a 30-member sustainability committee to determine the many possible ways of saving energy, district wide. The committee will study what other school systems are doing—like Decatur City Schools, that’s putting solar on older buildings—and will then make recommendations to the board. Changes and improvements will be coming for the next five to 10 years.
That was one of the many topics discussed at a Feb. 13 meeting of the Community Oversight Committee on ESPLOST. The meeting was held in the new café at the Athens Career Academy, part of the school’s culinary pathway.
• Work is progressing on renovating and expanding facilities at Cedar Shoals High School. When completed, the cafeteria will be larger and there will be a pavilion for outdoor eating. There will be a new ag science classroom, a new graphic arts classroom and a new weight room. The restrooms are also being redesigned in order to be safer.
• The Career Academy at H.T. Edwards will be getting a bio-manufacturing lab and a new faculty member to oversee it. Supported by various local industries, the lab will be finished by Aug. 1. The audio-visual studio in the academy is going to be quieter once “noise modifications” are finished. And the Career Academy is going to be getting a construction pathway in the next few years.
• The district’s alternative school is moving into the Oglethorpe Avenue building that housed the regional Rutland Center, one of the state’s many psychoeducational schools closed by the U.S. Department of Justice. Also housed in that building will be the school district’s police department, student services, counseling services and some nonprofits. The building is in good shape and needs few upgrades, other than paint.
• No one has stepped forward to buy Ellard Hall, an older house on the campus of the school district headquarters. Superintendent Robbie Hooker said the building has asbestos in it and is not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, so it needs to be remodeled before it can be used.
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