Dalton Middle expands, Morris Innovative moves under proposed plan

Tentative plans to increase Dalton Middle School by approximately 26,000 square feet are in the works as officials continue discussions on how to accommodate the growing student population there.

Also, Morris Innovative High School students will likely finish out much of their high school careers at the Fort Hill campus if tentative plans Dalton Board of Education members discussed on Friday are adopted.

Principals from both schools discussed their growing student populations and what it would take to handle them at the meeting.

Dalton Middle School Principal Brian Suits said his school is “pleasantly full at 1,620” students, but plans need to get underway soon to prepare for upcoming growth. The middle school is just a few percentage points over capacity this year, but enrollment projections show the school will continue to grow for several years before dropping. The school has grown by 100 students since last year.

Officials are discussing plans to add 10 classrooms to the existing building near the fine arts wing. When and if the classrooms are no longer needed as enrollment drops, the classroom addition could be converted to a theater, said Greg Smith of James W. Buckley Associates, the Albany-based company that drew up the plans.

They include some modifications to the existing building, the new classrooms, a new auxiliary gymnasium, and a cafeteria expansion for a total of $8.9 million.

The building is currently 196,376 square feet. The addition would raise that at least another 26,000 square feet.

Board members have said a 1 percent Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax that could last up to five years could pay for the expansion. They have not bid the project or said when, or even whether, they will ask voters to approve the sales tax.

Changes at Morris Innovative

Another project officials have said could be funded with the ESPLOST is renovations and additions for Morris Innovative High School.

Board members informally agreed to allow the school to move to Fort Hill and renovate the current MIHS location next to Blue Ridge School. They haven’t decided whether to move students back to MIHS after the renovation is finished or continue housing them in Fort Hill, nor have they decided how the current MIHS building would be used if the school moves.

Morris Principal Jennifer Phinney said the additional students they’re expecting at the school in fall 2012 due to recruiting and new career programs will bring student enrollment to around 500 or more. If MIHS remained next to Blue Ridge School, “there is no way” to get all the students in one building during bad weather or even weather drills, Phinney said. She noted the traffic congestion there is already a problem.

Officials have discussed placing mobile classrooms at the campus or simply moving students to Fort Hill where an alternative school and a special needs school have been housed for several years. Those two schools, Crossroads Academy and NorthStar, would move elsewhere. The Fort Hill option would still require some mobile classrooms, officials said, but students could all go inside during severe weather, and traffic congestion wouldn’t be as much of an issue.

Superintendent Jim Hawkins said moving to Fort Hill would work well for a short-term solution. Neither the current campus nor the Fort Hill campus is ready to accommodate 500 students long-term, architects and administrators have said. If the school moves to Fort Hill over the summer, it would take two to three years to renovate the MIHS location next to Blue Ridge for a cost of $14.55 million, or $11.76 million if students continue using the Dalton Community Center rather than building their own gym.

Renovating Fort Hill for students to stay there long-term would cost between $14.8 million and $13.5 million, depending on whether a separate building was constructed on the campus. A third option, buying and renovating an existing empty industrial building, would cost an estimated $14.6 million.

“I think you can see there’s not a compelling, obvious answer,” Hawkins said of the three ideas. “I think Jennifer (Phinney’s) opinion on which one (she prefers) long term, short term weighs heavily.”

Phinney said while students definitely want to expand the athletics program, she would like to see a community discussion about how many full-size gyms people want before building another one.

She would prefer moving students to Fort Hill while a permanent location is renovated. That would cost about $1.9 million, while keeping everyone at Morris Street while renovations are ongoing would cost about $1 million and create parking and other logistical problems.

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