Board Votes To Build In Single Phase
By Brandon Reed
Commerce will have its new high school built all at once, rather than in two phases.
At a called meeting last Wednesday, the Commerce Board of Education voted unanimously to build the new school in one phase, rather than on the two-phase schedule originally envisioned.
Superintendent Mac McCoy said the total cost of the two-phase process would have been approximately $19.4 million.
Under the one-phase plan, the cost is estimated be $17.9 million.
Actual costs won’t be known until bids are opened sometime later this spring.
McCoy said the savings would be put towards a bigger gym, as well as a nicer front face to the school building, among other items.
“The only way that we’re going to be able to give the people of Commerce what we want them to have ... is doing it all at one time, and saving that money,” said board member Bill Davis. “That’s the only way we’ll be able to enlarge that,”
Arthur Pattman agreed.
“We’ve got to do something,” Pattman said. “It’s going to be June pretty soon. School will be out, and we don’t want to be sitting here in August with no construction taking place. And the mere fact that we can save this money ... which could go to increase the size of the gymnasium, I’m all for it.”
One issue with going to a one-phase schedule as opposed to the original two-phase plan is the loss of the gym. Estimates say the high school may be without a gymnasium for one and a half to two basketball seasons, presenting the school system with a challenge.
“We have access to two gyms that we can practice in and we can play some of our games at the middle school,” McCoy said. He also said it was too early in the process to discuss the possibility of using gyms of nearby high schools.
In other business, following a 36-minute closed meeting, the board voted to approve several personnel recommendations. Among those was the retirement of Wanda Bagwell, a language arts teacher at CHS; the resignations of Jennifer Reese and Jeanette Smith; the hiring of Wanda Bagwell as 49 percent English teacher for CHS; the hiring of Chessa Knight; and the transfer of special education teacher David Flint from Commerce Elementary School to Commerce Middle School.
