Several new school buildings could be on the horizon for the Hall County School District.
School board members took a look Monday at a potential long-term facilities plan that, if approved, would include tearing down as many as six existing schools and building as many as four new ones by 2030. Superintendent Will Schofield said the district is looking to possibly replace a number of aging elementary school buildings across the county.
"We've got a number of facilities, over a million square feet, that are 60, 70, 80 years old," Schofield said. "We just believe that the time is right, we've got low long-term interest rates, we've got buildings that we've utilized beyond their useful life."
The proposed plan presented Monday would be broken into two five-year periods with most of the work taking place by January of 2025. The largest project on that agenda would be to build two new elementary schools to replace two or three existing schools. Where the new schools would be or what existing schools would be replaced are not yet known.
Also being proposed is a new middle school building for the Cherokee Bluff cluster in South Hall. Cherokee Bluff Middle School is currently housed in the same building as the high school. The school system is also proposing new performing arts centers for Johnson High School and West Hall High School as well as additional seating and field improvements for a number of athletic stadiums in the county.
The total cost of the first five years of work is estimated at $120 million. The proposal would also see the county do another round of elementary school replacement between 2025 and 2030 at an additional cost of $50 million.
School District officials say that SPLOST money will not be enough to cover the work and suggest using a pair of bond referendums and the 2020 ESPLOST to help fund the projects. Schofield told school board members that a vote on the proposed work could come this Summer.
"Maybe at the July meeting once we get the (Fiscal Year 2020) budget behind us," Schofield said.
