The Columbia County School System (CCSS) highlighted its Building Program during the Board of Education’s work session, Tuesday evening.
School Superintendent Steven Flynt presided over a series of presentations by CCSS administrators on the district-wide building plan, beginning by discussing the referendum to renew the education special purpose local option sales tax (ESPLOST), a one-penny sales tax to support the schools.
In 2015, more than 65% of Columbia County voters elected the ESPLOST, which authorized up to $140 million in collections and $55 million in general obligation bonds in its previous cycle from 2017 through 2022.
That cycle helped fund several projects for the district, including the construction of three new elementary schools—Grovetown Elementary, North Harlem Elementary and the replaced Westmont Elementary School building—as well as Harlem Middle School, the Lakeside Athletic Complex, additions to Grovetown Middle School and the District Support Complex.
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Flynt presented an outline of projects that the district would undertake should the public vote in favor of the next ESPLOST, part of the 10-Year-Building Program developed in 2021, based on community feedback. This entailed several tentative building renovations, HVAC replacements, new buses and upgrades for support facilities, technology infrastructure and safety and security.
District Chief Information Officer James Van Meter spoke to the board members about prospective technology improvements and their costs. In his presentation he noted that a equipping a hypothetical new school with tech as standardized by the district would cost some $26,000 per classroom.
Van Meter also made mention of the necessity of updating the equipment, and that most items such as laptops, projectors and wireless antennas, are on replacement schedules of five or six years. He observed that the district acquired some 15,000 Chromebook devices for students during the COVID pandemic, bringing the CCSD’s total student device count to over 28,000, all of which will ultimately need to be replaced. and these are going to need to be replaced.
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To install the most current infrastructure in newly constructed schools—network wiring, fiber, cabling, etc.—as well as upgrade the infrastructure of current schools, would cost on average approximately between $400,000 to $600,000 per school, depending on the school size, Van Meter said.
“Technology cost money,” said Van Meter to the board members. “The more rules and regulations that are presented to local school districts, the more funding it takes to comply. The more we move to virtual and online instructional materials, the more technologies will be required. All this costs money.”
Upcoming dates and times for more public information sessions regarding the CCSD’s Building Project are: Sept. 30 in the Evans High School Auditorium, Oct. 7 in the Harlem High School auditorium and Oct. 15 in the Lakeside High School auditorium, all at 5:30 p.m.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
