Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Seminole County School District Proposes PreK-12 School Facility

  • By Matt Jones
  • 04/19/21

Officials in the Seminole County School District, headquartered in Donalsonville, Ga., recently announced a proposal to build a new, all-inclusive, PreK-through-12 school facility. They attribute the need for a new building to the age of current facilities and continuing repairs to buildings damaged by Hurricane Michael, among others. The new school would lie south of the existing middle-high school on Georgia Highway 39 South.

A comprehensive survey of existing Seminole County schools revealed that it would be cheaper to build a new facility than perform the necessary upgrades to Seminole County Elementary School and Seminole County Middle/High School. Building a single, all-in-one facility also allows the school system to receive more funding from the Georgia Department of Education than it would for two distinct schools.

“To maximize our money from the state and to ensure all of our children are in modern, safe, and secure facilities, we are planning for a new PreK-12 facility,” said Superintendent Mark Earnest. “The new facility would allow the school system to start fresh and not have to allocate money each year to the high price of repairs and failures that are occurring in our current buildings. This will allow the chance to lower power bills substantially, as well.”

Funding for the project would come through a Seminole County Education Special Purpose Location Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST). According to Donalsonville News, an ESPLOST “allows local districts to ask voters for the ability to levy and collect a one percent sales tax to help fund school facility and equipment improvements. It cannot be used to pay operation expenses, such as salaries. ESPLOSTs are enacted by referendum, and Seminole County’s ESPLOST vote will take place in November 2021.”

Seminole County School System is eligible for Low Wealth Project Specific funding, which helps school systems ranking in the bottom quarter of ESPLOST earnings. The district would receive up to $32 million for the project, whose total cost is estimated at $44 million.

In order to build the facility, the school system would have to renew the ESPLOST in November, and the district would have to issue bonds for up to $12 million. “If the ESPLOST does not pass in November, we would not be able to construct a new school,” Earnest said.

The new facility would be energy efficient and designed with student safety as its main priority. The school’s design would also totally separate older and younger students, grouping them in the traditional phases of Grades K-5, 6-8, and 9-12.

Further information is available here.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Embry-Riddle Completes Construction on Research, Lab Facility

    Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) in Daytona Beach, Fla., recently announced the end of construction on a new research and lab facility on campus. The Center for Aerospace Engineering II (CAT II) will support aerospace research and technology development and broke ground last summer.

  • Dallas ISD Voters Approve $6.2B Bond Package

    Dallas ISD voters have approved a record-setting $6.2-billion bond package that district leaders say will modernize aging campuses, eliminate portable classrooms and reshape learning environments across one of the nation’s largest school systems.

  • UCF Modernizes College of Hospitality Management

    The University of Central Florida in Orlando, Fla., recently completed a major renovation effort for the Rosen College of Hospitality Management, according to a news release. The project modernized 77,600 square feet worth of academic classrooms, teaching labs, and collaborative spaces to support both students and faculty.

  • Rethinking K-12 Schools as a Continuous Learning Experience

    Most students move through three or more separate facilities during their K-12 journey, yet the built environments they encounter at each stage have traditionally been designed in isolation, with little continuity in spatial language, learning philosophy, or physical resources. Each new school is a reset with different layouts, learning models, expectations, and ways of moving through a building. The next generation of school design is making the case that the first day of kindergarten and the last day of high school can and should feel connected through common support systems and infrastructure in the physical environment.