Video: Starkville Consolidated Leaders Release Proposed Plan

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STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – After months of planning, The Commission on Starkville Consolidated School District Structure releases their proposed plan.

“I think the plan is a great start in the right direction. of course it’s not perfect, but at the same time, I think it gives us something we can look at, discuss and also fine tune,” said Commission Member Orlando Trainer.

The plan consist of various short-term and long-term possibilities. Officials want to maintain all the existing elementary schools and revamp the middle and high schools.

” This plan basically says for a temporary time, we would take our 6th grade out and move it to Overstreet, which we’re now using as an alternative school. The alternative school would go to another place. We don’t need but 10 classrooms for it to be successful. We’ll temporarily place our 6th graders there until we could build some type of either 9th and 8th or maybe possibly a 7th-8th grade school,” said Starkville School Superintendent Lewis Holloway.

Commission members say the eighth and ninth grade school would cost around $14 million. If they decide to build a 6th and 7th grade instead, it would cost $12 million. Right now, officials have funding options, but nothing set in stone.

“The legislature, I think some people think it’s a possibility and it may be, but until we have a plan it’s not a possibility. The county has bonding authority that they could put toward whatever project that we decide upon and then if the university gets involved, there’s possibly funding there. I think if we take a multi-faceted look at funding, then we could possibly pull this off,” said Superintendent Holloway.

Michelle Jones, president of Starkville parents for public schools in Starkville thinks parents will accept the options.

“I’m hearing that people are really comfortable. Financing is still an issue. All of those schools need to have the capacity to house the children. We’re going to have to have some kind of building campaign. However, I think that people are really excited about the opportunities that this is going to bring to our community,” said Jones.

Leaders hope releasing the plan would provide valuable input from Oktibbeha and Starkville parents at their public hearing November 7th.

“If there’s something they think that we need to know, make us aware of those things,” said Trainer.

“We had a huge crowd and turn out for the first meeting. and i hope now that parents really do have something to react to, that we’ll have that same large crowd again,” said Jones.

Commissioners are also looking at expanding pre-k opportunities by increasing the number of 4 year old classes.

Superintendent Holloway says they’ll turn in their final plans to lawmakers in January.

To see a copy of the proposed plan, click on the following link:

http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=2e4365a11145128f21fd2a42c&id=d813e0d32f&e=d8d32a9d88