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School board wants a new primary school
Even if our enrollment levels off and we don't see the anticipated growth that we have been expecting, we still have a major overcrowding problem on this campus, Superintendent Scott Penland told the board. "We'll have to deal with a mobile unit this fall, even if we don't grow anymore," Penland said. "We're going to need a new mobile unit, and I don't have a clue where we can put it." Saying with the advancement of larger Kindergarten and 2nd grade classes, Penland said he will have to add two more teachers to the First and Third grades. Board chairman Charles Penland said, "I walked through the Elementary building and it hit me just how crowded we are, especially the Kindergarten. We've got to do something about it." Board member Darryl McClure commenting on the demands on the cafeteria said, "The Kindergarten children eat breakfast and then an hour and a half later, they're in line for lunch. The high school kids don't get lunch until a quarter to one." Superintendent Penland said, "We're still feeding 1,400 people out of the cafeteria." Member Kerry Staton agreed with the crowded conditions saying, "Schools are one of the main attractions of people moving to our county. We need to keep them top quality." McClure said, "It the schools get better and larger, they are going to attract more people to the county." Member Jason Rhinehardt said the longer the county waits in getting on with building a new school, the more dollars it's going to cost. "We need to go talk to the commissioners to see what they can do," board member Israel Rogers said. "We don't have any option." Superintendent Penland provided an analysis showing the cost of a new school would be between $9 to $10 million. The land transfer tax has not gone well in other counties, Penland said. The additional 1/4 cent sales tax available for schools would only bring in approximately $200,000 per year, and the lottery brings in $95,000 per year. The analysis projects a 30 year mortgage for $10 million would cost about $600,000 or twice what the available taxes would bring in. One obvious way to pay for this school would be an ad-valorem tax increase, Penland said. "We would have to ask the county commissioners to do this." In other matters, the board congratulated teachers Leslie Setzer and Heather Payne in recently joining the ranks of National Board Certified Teachers. Citing a statistic of 18.69 percent of teachers, counselors and media specialists in Clay County Schools, Superintendent Penland told the board there are only four school systems in the state with a higher percentage of certified personnel than Clay County. Both Setzer and Payne thanked Penland and the school board for helping them to become certified. "The school let us go (to the center at WCU) for a week and provided teacher substitutes," Setzer said. She also expressed appreciation for her mentor who she said "got me on the right track and made a big difference in my preparation to take the test. "The program didn't change a whole lot about my teaching," she said. "But it made me think in a different way. I feel good that I finished it. It was a great thing to do, but it's a lot of work. A challenge. It makes you think more." Payne said it helped her hone in all the areas that "I wasn't as strong on. I had to really study. It made me a better teacher," she said.
The national certification comes with a monetary benefit to teachers in the way of a 10 to 12 percent pay increase, according to Superintendent Penland.
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