By Toni Garrard Clay/AISD Communications Specialist
Athens ISD board members’ approval of the proposed campus realignment comes one full year in advance of the decision’s effective date. The timing gives the public as well as district staff and administration opportunity to adjust and prepare for the change.
“Both of our primary campuses (Bel Air and South Athens elementaries) have reached capacity,” said Superintendent Blake Stiles during his presentation to the board (July 28). “We don’t have room to build at Bel Air or South, and if we did have room, the roads can’t handle more traffic.”
By contrast, Athens Intermediate School — which currently houses the district’s fourth- and fifth-grade population — does have room to grow. The board’s approval green lit the plan for Athens Intermediate to become a third elementary campus beginning with the 2015-2016 school year. Once that change is effective, Bel Air, South Athens and the former intermediate school will each house pre-K through fifth grade. Stiles suggested the intermediate campus be renamed Central Athens Elementary, though no formal action has been taken regarding the name. Assistant Superintendent Janie Sims said students will be grouped within each campus by grade in order to keep the youngest and oldest students from mingling.
Construction — which will be paid for out of the district’s fund balance — is expected to begin this fall to prepare the intermediate school for the influx of additional students the following school year. The board has approved the hiring of HGR General Contractors out of Tyler as the construction manager. HGR will oversee the addition of four new classrooms to each of the campus’s east wings (eight new classrooms total); two restrooms will be added to the north-south hallway; and the main building and cafeteria will be connected by an enclosed hallway.
“With three campuses, it will be easier to balance classroom numbers than it is with two elementaries and an intermediate,” said Stiles.
Increased student capacity at what is now the intermediate school also means increased traffic during pick-up and drop-off, which is already an issue on Madole Street. To alleviate the problem, the site of the original baseball field house on Madole Street will become an entry point for a campus access lane running parallel to Madole. Not only should the lane accomodate more vehicles without snarling traffic, it will also provide several much-needed parking spaces in front of the main office.
Another crucial component of campus realignment is the need to redraw the maps assigning student populations to each of the three elementary campuses. The school district has software to handle the redistricting needs, which takes into account data such as economics, race and grade.
“We want to work toward equitable distribution of boundary lines,” said Sims. The plan is to announce the campus boundary lines around spring 2015.
“It’s not going to be an easy task,” said Stiles. “But we want to be as diverse at each campus as possible.”
Just as students will be affected by the realignment, so too are teachers. Athens Intermediate will receive the greatest influx of teachers. But all campuses will see some staff changes out of necessity. Exactly how that will be handled is under careful consideration.
“We will have to come up with a plan for how we reallocate teachers,” said Sims. “We know that is a sensitive issue, and we’re working on it.”