GAINESVILLE –Superintendent Dr. Jeremy Williams is now well into his second year overseeing the Gainesville City School System and despite coming from a much smaller school district in 2017 he knows a “logjam” could be ahead for the growing population of Gainesville.
Williams said at Monday evening’s school board meeting that the board needs to make plans soon for the increasing number of students in the Gainesville School District.
When asked after the meeting how he would rate the urgency of the need to develop plans on a scale of 1-10 (with one being “little urgency” and ten being “maximum urgency”) Williams said, “I would say it’s about a six or a seven. The number one reason is we know we have a facilities plan that’s been approved and we know that in the next two years we have to formalize what our (E)SPLOST projects are going to be, but as a part of formalizing that we’ve got to make sure we have community-buy-in to support that SPLOST project.”
Williams said any project or projects will be dependent upon voter approval to extend the current ESPLOST for another five years. That referendum (SPLOST VI) won’t happen until 2020 according to Williams but he said the district needs to be ready well before that date.
With that in mind Williams announced at Monday’s school board meeting a series of “Listening Sessions” scheduled for October to gather input and suggestions from the community about how they would like to handle the strong student growth.
The numbers don’t lie and Williams sees an overcrowding crisis on the horizon. At the school board meeting principals from each of the six elementary schools gave report about the start of the new school year; each gave the enrollment of their campus as of that afternoon:
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Centennial - 883 students
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Enota – 793 students
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Fair Street – 421 students
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Gainesville- 693 students
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Mundy Mill – 575 students
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New Holland – 657 students
That’s 4022 students in six elementary schools headed towards the district’s one middle school, described by Williams as “overcrowded”, and then on to the district’s one high school.
One of the first steps Williams initiated in an effort to balance school populations and maintain quality education was redistricting; that process began late in 2017. At the informational meetings held in conjunction that plan Williams said, “The reason we are here is because Gainesville city has grown by 3,000-students in the last ten years.”
Williams redistricting strategy has accomplished short term relief, but with strong housing growth and abundant job opportunities attracting families to Gainesville the number of children ready to attend school will likely also increase significantly.
“Right now we’re kind of starting from a blank slate and we want to see what they (Gainesville residents) have as far as thoughts concerning our middle school and high school,” Williams said.
The schedule for four “Listening Sessions” has not been finalized as of this writing but Williams said, “We look to have one at Cluster A, one in Cluster B, one at middle school, one at high school. Of those four we hope to have two of them during the day and two of them in the evening.”
“We want to hear from the community,” Williams summarized. “As we start down this road of next steps…where are we headed over the next five, ten, fifteen, even twenty years? Does that mean we have a sixth grade academy or second middle school? Do we have a second high school or do we have a career academy?”
“Part of the reason we are going to host one at an elementary school in Cluster A and Cluster B is when you think about a third, fourth or fifth grade student and their families they are going to get to benefit possibly in high school.”
Williams said once dates, times and locations are determined for the October “Listening Sessions” his office will inform the student body and make the information available to the general public.
