Published: October 28, 2009 11:40 pm      

State OKs Boyd building plan

Architectural design next step for new high school

Summit — State education officials have put the stamp of approval on plans for a new Boyd County High School, clearing the way for architects to start drawing up designs.

The plan the state approved was a broad outline of classroom and other space needs for 1,000 students, broken down by program areas. “We don’t know what it will look like, but we know what’s going to be inside the building,” said district finance director Don Fleu. “The architect has to design a building to hold it all.”

The plans for the 144,000-square-foot school call for organization into academic clusters, “schools within a school,” as educators call it.

The clusters will include:

‰science, technology, engineering, agricultural technology, mathematics and medical science.

‰business, information and marketing.

‰communications, arts and humanities.

‰social, entertainment and public services.

‰freshman academy.

The plan includes a timeline calling for construction to start in September 2010 and be ready for use by the 2013 school year.

The freshman academy will keep ninth-graders together in class and combine them with older students for meals, assemblies and other functions. The separation enhances what Superintendent Howard K. Osborne called “the three Rs — rigor, relevance and relationships,” that students must build in the first crucial high school year.

It also will include literacy programs to ensure that the freshmen are prepared to move up to higher grades, Osborne said.

There will be a 450-seat auditorium and a 2,500-seat gym. That means hIgh school basketball games, currently played in the middle school gym, can be played at the high school. With two roomy gyms, the district will be able to accommodate more sports programs, Osborne said.

There also will be more room for assemblies, he said.

The next step is developing a master site plan for the 135 acres where the school will be built.

The land is on a hillside across Ky. 180 from the current high school.

The plan will try to anticipate the district’s needs as far into the future as possible, Fleu said. The plan should be completed by early December.

The fate of the current high school is still under discussion. One possibility would be placing the district’s early childhood programs there. Boyd’s preschool programs currently are in three locations. Two are in schools and the district leases the third.

Making that decision won’t be an issue for another five years, Fleu said.

Eventually new athletic fields will be built and until then teams will use fields at the existing school.

The school will cost about $31 million and is being designed for a life expectancy of at least 50 years.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2652.