香蕉影视

Construction could begin on a proposed new middle school and elementary school on donated land near I-520 in North Augusta as early as 2019 if the Aiken County School Board approved the recommendation and voters approved a bond referendum to fund it.

With funds from a bond referendum, Alford said the schools and other proposed building projects all could be completed by 2022.

Aiken County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Sean Alford said Thursday the school would be built on approximately 80 acres of a 1,500-acre parcel that runs parallel to I-520 and is near Ascauga Lake and Edgefield roads. The parcel is near Exit 5 on I-20.

Alford announced the location of the two schools at a town hall meeting in the cafeteria in the new Aiken High School wing. About 150 people attended the meeting to hear information, ask questions and provide feedback about the district's recommendations to balance student populations across the county and plans to address overcrowding, especially in the North Augusta and Midland Valley areas.

Alford said continued development in the area around Exit 5 in North Augusta is “coming.”

“We have two choices,” he said. “We can either prepare for for it, or someone can come back in town hall meetings probably five years from now and say we didn't prepare for it.”

Alford said acquisition of the parcel is in final discussions and did not announce the name of the developer.

The building projects would cost $32 million, but funding currently is not available.

The school board has proposed a $90 million bond that would pay for the projects and also an expansion at Midland Valley High, which is at 113 percent capacity, and replacement of 1950s-era buildings at Millbrook, Belvedere and Hammond Hill elementary schools to allow for expected continued growth and to provide more security for the campuses

After the announcement and presentation, Alford answered questions from parents and community members.

Alford responded to a question about the district's recommendation to change the attendance boundaries of students who live in the Trolley Run Station neighborhood on University Parkway from Area 3 to Area 1.

Currently, students in the neighborhood are zoned for Byrd Elementary, the new Leavelle McCampbell Middle and Midland Valley High in Graniteville. If the board approves the changes, students would attend Aiken Elementary, Aiken Middle for sixth grade, Schofield Middle for seventh and eighth grades and Aiken High.

A parent with a daughter at Leavelle McCampbell Middle and two sons at Byrd Elementary asked when a final decision would be made on the proposed attendance area change and could parents apply for waivers to to keep his children in Area 3 schools.

The district has recommended a “grandfathering” proposal that would allow students who start at a school to continue at that school until completion. Then, they would move to the schools in their attendance zones.

“As a parent, how do rip my daughter from the only friends she's known and put her in a high school environment where she's pretty much brand new?” the father asked. “What is the likelihood of waivers? That way my wife and I can say maybe we just need to move so we can stay within the guidelines.”

Alford said the final timeline will not be made until after Jan. 23, 2018, and School Board members have reviewed all feedback from the six town halls.

 
“Then, a timeline will be created because we’ll know then what we're going to do instead of creating a timeline for things we might not do,” he said.

Concerning waivers to attend a school outside the students' attendance zones, Alford said transfer requests would be approved based on whether space was available at the school, whether parents could provide transportation and whether parents have a justifiable reason for the transfer.

Other parents expressed concerns about changing attendance lines for students who currently attend Chukker Creek Elementary.

Under the proposed change, 116 students on the east side of Whiskey Road who now attend Chukker Creek but would be moved to East Aiken School of the Arts.

“We're within 2 miles of Chukker Creek, and then we're going to drive past Millbrook to go to East Aiken,” one father said. “I just think that's a little farfetched.”

Alford said the decision to change the attendance zone for those students was the most difficult the district faced when trying to balance student populations according to percentages of poverty and minority students.

“That is the most direct inconvenience for the people who live in that swath of land,” Alford said. “Proximity-wise it does not appear to be an advantage – it does not. We moved that puzzle around 50 million ways. Every way you cut it besides this one, it took Chukker Creek even further away from the district averages and placed all the other elementary school in the area on the opposite side further away from the district average.”

Story by Larry Wood, The Aiken Standard

November 16, 2017