A version of this story was originally published in the Sylva Herald Feb. 13 edition
The Jackson County boards of Commissioners and Education held a joint meeting Wednesday, Feb. 6 at Southwestern Community College’s Burrell Building.
Superintendent Dana Ayers led the discussion over various facelifts that many Jackson County schools will see in the upcoming years including Fairview and Blue Ridge renovations, upgrades to current athletic complexes and the construction of a new middle school.
Randy Baker, an architect from Pinnacle Architecture contracted to design and construct the school renovations and constructions, helped lead the conversation advocating for the changes to the various schools.
“We’re the type of architects where it is your building. It’s going to be the school’s building and the people who live [in the area],” Baker said. “We like to get the community involved.”
Meetings are in the process of getting scheduled to gain input from students, teachers, community members including the Board of Commissioners.
Commissioner Jenny Lynn Hooper emphasized completion of the project all the way through. Her concerns branch from Smoky Mountain High School’s softball and baseball fields not being completed five years ago.
“We don’t need to just put Band-Aids on things, and I feel like in the past its sort of been, you know, slap a Band-Aid on it, it’ll go away, and it doesn’t last any amount of time,” Hooper said.
The goal of both boards is to have each project overlap so there is a continuous flow of improvements across Jackson County. The plan discussed at the meeting was to start Fairview and Blue Ridge construction first and have the middle school and sports complex improvements start somewhere along the way.
In total, it is estimated to cost $80 million for all projects.
Click on the links below to see more details about each project:
Fairview Elementary
Blue Ridge School
New traditional middle school
Sports complex improvements
