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According to county finance director Lori Carpenter, the next step will be to publish the RFQ and then have a committee that selects an architect. Once an architect is chosen, the price will be negotiated and then brought back to the board.
Plans to create a pre-K program at Highlands School are rolling after the Macon County Board of Commissioners approved a Request for Qualifications to hire an architect to look at the plans.
The board of commissioners were presented the plan for a $4.5 million renovation project at Highlands School that would include introducing two new pre-K classrooms at their board meeting back in April.
BOC chairman Jimmy Tate brought up the discussion again Thursday night saying he wants to see this project move forward.
“In April, we had representatives with the Advancing Highlands Education Committee come to us expressing a need for pre-K in Highlands,” Tate said. “I’m happy to rehash that conversation, but I would like to see this move forward with us getting behind this project.”
AHEC hired Novus Architects, an architecture and design firm out of Asheville, to do a planning study on the school. In the planning study, Novus outlined several objectives including providing pre-K services on campus, integrating project based learning curriculum and enhancements to CTE curriculum.
Tate said with the study, the footprint is already there for any architect they hire.
“Those architects did a conceptual study,” Tate said. “It was basically a spacial needs analysis figuring out where they could put the pre-K and everything that is required by the state to have it there. Our architects won’t be doing any conceptual designs because they will already have the footprint. They’ll be doing all of the details.”
As far as the current expense and the teachers, county manager Derek Roland said the state would fund all but two teaching assistants, but not the brick and mortar of the renovation.
Commissioner Josh Young, who has been liaison to the Macon County Board of Education for the past two years, was hesitant, asking if this project would take priority over some of the other projects that are on the county’s plate.
“How many meetings have we had about the middle school? Four? Five? Six?” Young said. “We’ve had probably the same or more about the high school. I feel like the school board prioritized this as number one. It’s a lot of money to spend overnight. Do we take this as priority over the projects we are already working on?”
Tate said it is an opportunity to invest in the community that is one of the biggest economic drivers in the county.
Commissioner Ronnie Beale said this is only the first step in the process and it doesn’t cost the board any money.
“We have already done this step at the high school and this is basically the first step for any project before you spend any money,” Beale said. “This is the only way to really know how much this is going to cost. In this day and age, who knows.”
According to county finance director Lori Carpenter, the next step will be to publish the RFQ and then have a committee that selects an architect. Once an architect is chosen, the price will be negotiated and then brought back to the board.
- By Christopher Lugo