School board gets input from community on bond referendum schools

John Bowman and Gary Brown answer questions.
Photo by Melissa Rollins

By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net

Last week, the Darlington County School District held six community meetings in the three communities where they will be building new schools. The meetings served as an opportunity for community members to share their desires for the schools. It was also as a chance for the district to give the community the timeline for school construction and explain the building process. Representatives of Jumper Carter Sease Architects, as well as Goforth Brown & Associates were present to discuss the architectural aspects of the schools they have been contracted to design. John Bowman of John Bowman Construction and project manager Dale Collier, President of Brownstone Construction, were also present.

During the meeting, District Public Information Officer Audrey Childers spoke about how the district got to the point it is at.

“In November, the voters of the Darlington County School District passed a $60 million dollar bond referendum by a 62 percent passage rate,” Childers said. “We are very excited about that. We had an existing Penny Sales Tax. In passing the bond referendum, the school district ended up paying off the very last bit of that Penny Sales Tax and essentially extending the Penny Sales Tax so that voters didn’t actually see any increase in terms of the tax rates; that penny just continued on.”
Childers said that the new Penny Sales Tax allowed for up to sixty million dollars for the project.

“If we can get it in under, that’d be great,” Childers said. “Ten years ago, twelve years ago, we had a $48 million dollar bond referendum but things have gone up significantly and we do have to take that into place.”

One new school will be built in Darlington, Hartsville and Lamar, replacing two aging schools in each of those communities. Childers said that the average age of DCSD schools is around 45. The average age of the schools that will be replaced is closer to 56.

“When you are talking about facilities and electrical needs and technology needs, it tends to get on up there and cause some challenges,” Childers said.

The cost

Each of the schools will have a program budget of $20 million. Collier explained exactly what a program budget is.

“Program includes the entirety of what needs to be done in these particular areas,” Collier said. “When you talk about a program budget, it is not just the construction of the building. It is the fees that are associated with it; it’s the land purchases that may have to be made. It is also the furniture, fixtures and equipment, technology and the like that need to go into these buildings; everything associated with that particular site, we’re going to make sure it fits within that $20 million targeted budget.”

Location

In the case of J.L. Cain Elementary and Brunson-Dargan Elementary Schools in Darlington, the replacement school will be located on the Cain property. In Hartsville and Lamar, no decision has been made on site selection for the replacement schools. Community members have expressed concerns in the past over where the new schools might be built. During the May 8 school board meeting, Hartsville pastor Reverend J. D. Blue told board members that “it is going to be a fight” if Washington Street Elementary is moved from the south side of town when it is merged with West Hartsville Elementary.

Timeline

According to Collier, the desired project timeline would see all three schools being constructed simultaneously with an anticipated opening date of Aug. 2019.
“Right now what we have is an approximate three year program to complete these schools,” Collier said. “Right now we have the projects starting this year and that would take us to the fall of 2019. We are talking about getting the design done in time for next spring. To go vertical, we are talking about 18 months from there.”

Naming

Just as with the site selection, no decisions have been made about the naming of the new schools. During one of the community meetings, Superintendent Eddie Ingram told the audience that he would love to see them have input and that could take place in a variety of ways. Ultimately, the school board would likely have the final say.

Dream School

Childers had audience members come up with ideas of what they would put in a ‘dream school’ if they could build that for their children. Here are a few ideas that were given out:

• A gymnasium that seats the entire school population

• ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Access

• A front office with a bathroom with a shower for younger students or special needs students who may need it

• A school building that reflects the community it is in

• Energy efficient buildings

• Good traffic flow for parents, buses and community members

• Foreign language instruction

• Collaborative spaces

• Keyboarding instruction

• Standard space reporting/more personalized learning and assessments

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