Jefferson County Schools Facilities Director Phagan Discusses Timelines for Rezoning, Capital Projects, and Renovations

With the funding questions regarding the White Pine School Renovation and Addition Project answered, at least for Phase I, Director of Facilities for Jefferson County Schools Michael Phagan is looking at time lines and a possible shift in zoning that could be on the horizon for Jefferson County Department of Education.

According to Phagan, contracts for the sub contractor work at White Pine School should be completed by January 25, 2017 and he expects work to begin in earnest by mid February. If things run smoothly he is anticipating the work on the kitchen/cafeteria to be completed before school starts next year, sometime around July 31, 2017. The rest of Phase I should be finished over Christmas Break 2017 with students moving into the new classrooms when they return to school in January of 2018. At this point it is unclear how much funding will be available for Phase II, which would ideally at least include the remaining four classrooms and possibly any other upgrades that the budget can sustain.

Though the overcrowding of White Pine School has been forefront as of late, Phagan said that there are other schools that are facing overcrowding issues. He pointed to Talbott, Mount Horeb and Maury Middle School as those that are at or above capacity. Phagan said that the next charge for the Transportation and Facilities Departments will be making a recommendation for rezoning. He noted that Jefferson County Schools sit on both ends of the spectrum, with some have additional space and others bursting at the seams. Phagan is aware that rezoning is a touchy issue with parents and students and, should the School Board decide to pursue information and a potential plan to rezone County wide, he anticipates that parents would have the opportunity for input, as they did during the rezoning after the building plan that brought the construction of Mount Horeb School. When asked for a time line that a wide spread rezoning plan might be instituted, Phagan said that would be at the discretion of the School Board but it would most likely not be put into effect until the fall of 2018, unless some minor shifts were needed for the 2017-2018 school year.

Other items that will on the calendar for Phagan and his department are some upcoming maintenance projects which include the ongoing sewer issues at Rush Strong School. He will be contacting Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation within the next 30 days and providing an updated report. At that time it will be determined just what upgrades will be necessary to the current sewer system at Rush Strong School. Phagan said that it was discovered that the old gym located above the school was not hooked into the system correctly and that could have been causing some of the problems. During times that the gym was more heavily in use, it appeared to be impacting the testing numbers. That problem has been corrected but it is unclear how much of an impact it will have on the numbers long term. Currently, a representative from TDEC is leading a class project at the University of Tennessee and they are using Rush Strong School as a project site. Phagan is hopeful that some good suggestions for a long term remedy will be forthcoming. Window are also an upcoming project that will require quite a bit of funding, with the windows at Jefferson Elementary School and Jefferson County High School needing large scale replacement. Neither is covered in the current 2016-2017 capital projects budget and they are estimated to cost in the neighborhood of $400,000 and $300,000 respectively.