Daily Independent (Ashland, KY)

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September 18, 2012

Russell schools moving forward on new facilities

Mike James The Independent

RUSSELL — A new Russell High School is still probably at least a decade away, but the school district has cleared a significant hurdle in bringing it about.

The school board next week is expected to approve a long-range facilities plan that includes a new high school.

Approval of the plan does not guarantee the school will be built. That will depend on the district being able to raise the money, through state aid, property taxes and borrowing, to fund construction.

The plan could be more accurately called a list of construction priorities, and in fact most local education officials refer to it as a “wish list.”

However, the district requires permission from the Kentucky Department of Education for each item included on the facilities plan, and the draft under consideration is the first one in years for which the department has allowed inclusion of a new high school.

“This is a big deal,” said board member Terry Vest at a special board meeting Monday. Vest is on the district committee that crafted the plan.

In previous years when the district submitted plans to the state mentioning a high school, the state kicked them back with the finding that it would not be feasible.

This time around, Russell has just completed major renovations on the middle school and also has recently upgraded its intermediate school. The elementary is only a few years old.

The plan estimates the cost of a 600-student high school at $22 million and doesn’t specify a site.

It also includes major renovation of the existing high school for conversion to a middle school, further renovation of the middle school for conversion to an intermediate school, renovation of Russell-McDowell intermediate for conversion to district offices, an alternative school and an early childhood center, and renovation of the Russell Area Technology Center.

The plan calls for the high school to house grades 10 through 12 and the middle school to serve grades 6 through 9, but those could and probably would be amended to the more typical 9-12 and 6-8 configurations by the time the district was ready to start the design and building process, according to Superintendent Susan Compton.

The board will take a final vote on the plan at its 7 p.m. Monday regular meeting and will have to send it to Frankfort for final approval by the Kentucky Board of Education. The meeting will be preceded at 6 p.m. by a public hearing on the plan.

The hearing will be moderated by Kentucky School Boards Association facilitator Larry Woods, who has been consulting with the district while the plan was being written.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or

(606) 326-2652.

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