GAINESVILLE – Hall County School Superintendent Will Schofield sat down after Monday evening’s school board work session and looked back with satisfaction at the district’s first week of classes.
He agreed that this year’s opening day of school came with extra challenges: the opening of two new schools (Cherokee Bluff High School and Cherokee Bluff Middle School) as well as the moving of three schools onto new campuses (South Hall Middle School, C.W. Davis Middle School and Flowery Branch High School).
“It was a huge logistical challenge,” Schofield said.
He continued, “This is my nineteenth (year) as a superintendent and I don’t remember a smoother opening. Certainly we have the bumps – you end up with a few kids on the wrong buses, some crying kindergarteners – but for the most part the schools were staffed…facility plans had been made and completed and we had a really smooth opening of school.”
“Communication, communication, and communication, just letting people know,” Schofield credited as the secret for the smooth transition.
Schofield said if one aspect of the first week of school caught him off guard it was enrollment. “We continue to have surprises at the elementary level; they’re dipping a little bit at the elementary level and we haven’t quite got our hands around that.”
“I’ve got some hypotheses,” Schofield began, but then backed away. “I’m just not going to say them at this point because we want to see exactly what’s behind that.”
Despite the fact that school had been in session only one week, and that his office had just put the finishing touches on opening two new schools, Schofield was already planning for the future
The U.S. Census Bureau placed the population of Hall County just under 200,000 as of July, 2017, an increase in population ahead of many predictions. Sustained growth like that, Schofield agreed, will strain the school system and probably require system expansion.
Schofield said, “We are growing; we’re going to make some plans, not only for growth but also for the fact that we have a number of facilities – probably 300,000 to 400,000 square feet of facilities – that are sixty, seventy and eighty years old.”
Schofield said the 365-corridor was one area that he was watching closely. “I have said for ten years that the sleeping giant is the 365-corridor. It has wide open land that’s relatively inexpensive land…I think we’re going to see significant growth and surprising growth in that corridor over the next five to ten years.”
At present that area is within the East Hall High School district, one of the county’s smallest and oldest high schools built in 1957.
Schofield also explained that most of the estimated 150-students affected by the expiration of the Hall County-Gainesville City Schools Tax Sharing Agreement have enrolled in the Gainesville system.
“The vast majority of those students are now attending the Gainesville City (School) System. I know that they’ll do their dead-level best to care for those kids…I have every confidence that our sister system will take good care of those families.”
To hear more of Superintendent Schofield’s comments about the start of the 2018-2019 school year use the audio player above and to the left.
