Sullivan Board Submits Bond Applications

BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. – Sullivan County school officials hope a new state construction fund can help them expand Emmett Elementary so it could hold another 150 students in time for the 2011-12 school year.

The Board of Education on Wednesday approved plans to seek a $1.7 million loan from the state’s Qualified School Construction Bond Program to add six classrooms to Emmett’s campus, which is near South Holston Dam.

“What they want are things that are as shovel-ready as possible and can be completed quickly,” Director of Schools Jack Barnes said of the program, which is set to hand out $121.4 million for school construction projects over the next two months. The money is part of the federal stimulus package.

Barnes said the extra space at Emmett would be used to house students who would normally attend Valley Pike Elementary School, which is just outside the Bristol, Tenn., limits. Closing Valley Pike would save $200,000 per year, Barnes said.

Emmett’s expansion is one of three construction projects the school board hopes to fund with loans from the bond program. The two other projects involve the Bloomingdale community’s Ketron Intermediate School and the Holston Elementary and Middle School campus, which is next to Tri-Cities Regional Airport in Blountville.

Emmett is home to about 230 students, three-fourths of whom receive free or reduced priced lunches. This makes the school a good candidate for the program, Federal Projects Supervisor David Timbs said.

“We would really be putting a lot of money into a school with an at-risk population,” Timbs said, adding that 80 percent of Valley Pike’s 140 students receive free or reduced priced lunches.

It would take about 19 months to add the six classrooms to Emmett’s main building, said Don Solt, an architect hired by the county to work on the school’s expansion and other consolidation projects. The project would also involve replacing Emmett’s kitchen equipment with more efficient appliances and adding carpet.

The board also unanimously approved seeking the loans for the Ketron Intermediate and Holston Elementary and Middle school projects.

School officials hope to add 25 classrooms to Ketron with a $15.2 million loan so it could be converted into a school for kindergarten through the seventh grade.

School officials would close Cedar Grove and Kingsley elementary schools and send their students to Ketron once the expansion was finished. Closing the two schools north of Kingsport would save $552,000 each year, Barnes said.

School officials also hope to use a $4.2 million loan from the bond program to add a new roof and geothermal heating system to Holston school.

Barnes said he needs to get the full Sullivan County Commission to sign off on the loan applications, which total $20 million, before he can submit them in time for the Aug. 21 deadline.

“They are the county’s taxing agency so they will have to figure out how the loan payments will be made,” said Barnes, who encouraged all school board members to attend the commission’s meeting at 9 a.m. Monday in support of the project.

If the loans are approved, the county would make payments over 15 years, starting in 2011. Payments would be about $1.4 million per year on the full $20 million package, Mayor Steve Godsey said.

“It’s a great opportunity,” Godsey said, adding that the commission will likely approve the loan package because its members want the school system to reduce costs by consolidating facilities.
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