School board looking at ELC expansion as priority over other district projects

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Saturday, July 12, 2014, 1 a.m. — The Nelson County Board of Education discussed which building project the district should make its priority at its working session Thursday.

The discussion arose during a review of an early proposal to enlarge the Early Learning Center (ELC) on Cardinal Drive. Stephen Ward, an architect with Studio Kremer Architects, showed the board a diagram of possible expansion that would double the number of classrooms.

Tim Hockensmith explained that the ELC building is the only district building that is over capacity. There’s a need for additional classrooms for daycare and for a possible increase in preschool students, he said. The preliminary sketch shown to the board added seven classrooms.

“We think there’s a potential for us to continue to grow,” Hockensmith told the board. “If we move daycare back there now we’ll need two of those new rooms already.”

Board members expressed concern about giving the ELC priority over needed projects at other schools, including an auditorium at Thomas Nelson High School and long-delayed renovation work at the New Haven School. With the amount of bonding the district has available, only one project can be considered at this time, Hockensmith told the board.

“We promised those parents at Thomas Nelson we would give them equal opportunity,” board member Nicky Rapier said of plans for adding an auditorium at the school. “All of a sudden it sounds like we won’t have an auditorium at Thomas Nelson for at least five years.”

Board member Diane Berry said it wasn’t fair to Thomas Nelson students to have to move school activities to the Nelson County Civic Center or other facility. “These kids don’t have a home for those activities,” she said. “If you’re in the arts, that auditorium means a lot.”

Chairman Frank Hall expressed disappointment that renovations at New Haven would be delayed. “As we are moving projects to the top of the list the other projects we talk about keep getting pushed to the bottom,” he said.

Board member Damon Jackey said the board has limited funds for projects, and it was a question of getting the biggest bang for the buck.  Berry said she felt it was difficult to predict the growth in preschool students, and that it was not realistic to believe the district would retain a great many of the preschoolers who enroll and live in the Bardstown Independent Schools district.

Rapier asked Ward about reducing the number of classrooms in the expansion to save money. “I know in my heart this is a priority, but the question is do we build four rooms, five rooms or seven rooms?”

Ward explained that construction costs are increasing each year, but it may be worth building the shared spaces and adding additional classrooms in phases. He noted that adding seven classrooms would likely be the limit of the building’s expansion capability. The City of Bardstown has a water main on the property that limits how much the building can be expanded, he said.

The board asked Ward to look again at the expansion with an eye for scaling it back somewhat from the version presented that day.

In other business, the board

— reviewed plans for a reading recovery program that will track student’s progress from grade-to-grade and school to school;

— reviewed changes to the student transportation information to insure the information is entered into Infinite Campus in a timely manner;

— accepted a report on planned changes to employee screening in the hiring process to make the process uniform and consistent in hiring the best candidates for job openings in the district;

— and heard of plans to improve the district’s internal and external communications.

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