By Victor Miller
Batting and pitching cages. An expanded weight room. An indoor track.
Those are some of the components of a $1.29 million, 15,000-square-foot multipurpose facility approved Monday night by the Dalton Board of Education for Dalton High School. Palmer Griffin, assistant superintendent for operations, said the structure, to be built adjacent to the field house on the DHS campus, could be ready by November or December of this year.
“We’re really looking forward to using it in a lot of areas,” Griffin said. “It will help in a lot of ways, give us some flexibility that not every school has, not every community has. This will be a real good step for our community.”
Board members unanimously approved a contract with Felker Construction of Dalton for the project (Mark Orr was not present).
“With this approval tonight, we’ve already started the permitting process, which is atrocious,” Griffin said. “That site is in the watershed for a particular creek somewhere so we’ve got to get all these permits done.”
The facility will have a single floor. The weight room will have a 14-foot ceiling and the multipurpose room will have a 24-foot ceiling, Griffin said.
“We have needed some more space for youngsters to work and play in, so working with the board of education, the architect has designed a multipurpose facility, the majority of it, a little over 50 percent, is a weight room that will increase the size of our current weight room probably threefold,” Griffin said.
“And then attached to that will be a room that we’re really kind of dreaming some of the uses for it: batting cages, pitching cages, a place to hit a golf ball in the off season, a place for the tennis folks to hit a ball in the cold of the winter. We’ll have an indoor 40-yard track so that the youngsters can be timed on the 40 inside, and it will give us a multi-weather facility to use, particularly in the dead of the winter or when practicing football in August and you get that thundershower. Part of the team could go in the gym and part of the team could go in this multipurpose room.”
Also Monday night, board members:
• Approved two contracts with Estes CPAs for financial audit services and for performance audit services on ELOST (Educational Local Option Sales Tax) funds bids. Superintendent Orval Porter noted he was not recommending the low bid but rather a local vendor who he considered “very capable of delivering the services.”
Board member Danny Crutchfield said he would prefer to “use someone local who has a lot of interest in the (school) system and is paying taxes. It makes a lot of sense to me, since it is close.”
Both contracts are for five years. The financial audit services is for $44,400 a year. The ELOST funds bids contract is for a total of $15,000 for the five years.
• Approved changes in student conduct and grading policies.
• Recognized a number of students: Ahmayia Austin, Allen Dagnan, Bekah Houston, Celina Joaquin, Gabriel Gonzalez, Gerardo Paniagua, Giovanny Rivera, Jameson Hannah, Javen Gibson, Kate Havelin, Maria Medina, Melanie Lopez, Omar Espitia, Perla Sandoval, Zachary McIntyre, Carlos Basso, Demetria Teal, Diego Lopez, Hali Belle Sheram, Jorge Ortiz, Jose Rodriguez, Litzy Orozco, Marshall Phillips, Omar Ortiz, Pedro Juan, Pedro Ramos, Samary Hernandez, Sandra Fernandez, Sawyer Stinnett, Steven Alean, Vanessa Manriquez, Veronica Salaices, Amy Barradas, Carter Patterson, Julie Miller, Kassidy Dean, Lizz Cambron, Mayra Cisneros, Yea Jee Bae and the members of Pam Smith's class.
Also during the meeting, the school system’s Reading Recovery program was lauded, and a trip of Dalton High School students to Italy under the leadership of Latin teacher Dana Miller was highlighted.
