Long-term facility plan is discussed

The members of the Alleghany County Board of Education discussed facilities during their recent board meeting, held Nov. 5 at Glade Creek School. It had been requested that the topic be discussed as the board starts to makes their way towards a long-term facilities plan.

Superintendent Jeff Cox stated, "We'd obviously been working up toward the plan last March with a middle school, but the bond referendum did not pass. We knew we'd need to revamp, we're trying to rethink where we were going; we still have many needs to address. It's fitting that we're here at Glade Creek School tonight because they certainly have a number of needs. "When we were having these conversations a couple years ago, Glade Creek sat with about 240, 250 students and now they have over 300 students. Fifty more students in a school this size is quite a large number to absorb without any additional space. There are definitely needs that are going to have to be addressed and so we do need to go on about the business of figuring out what all we're going to do with our facilities overall, what are the needs at each of our schools."

Cox recalled that a couple years ago, plans had been initiated in the chance a middle school was built in the county and one which did not include the building of a middle school. Cox has since asked the school principals to have conversations with their staff and other stakeholders to determine current needs at schools.

"I think we've got some more work to do…It's fine to say we're going to add some more classrooms here at Glade Creek, but where are we going to put them?" asked Cox. "It's fine to say we want to buy some additional land, but what land? Where? How is it going to fit into the plan? We're really back at the beginning of retooling and retooling how we're going to do this.

 

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