The Limestone County Board of Education discussed Wednesday the possibility of expanding the Career Tech Center to Owens Elementary School once Owens closes.

Superintendent Tom Sisk told board members at the work session the Academic Center for Excellence would allow for additional programs to be offered to students and the opportunity to partner with Alabama Connections virtual school.

After reimbursements from Alabama Connections, the $263,937 ACE project would bring the county school system $6,063.

“This is not a new concept,” Sisk said. “I started putting this forward my second year as superintendent, before we knew we were going to build an elementary school or what building would be available.”

ACE rationale

Sisk’s concern, he told board members, is that once Owens students are moved to Sugar Creek Elementary, the Owens building will deteriorate and be a target for vandalism.

“We can talk about Reid, we can talk about Belle Mina and when those buildings are walked away from, they become a problem,” he said.

When discussion began about the new West Limestone elementary school, board members made a commitment to the community to maintain the Owens building, Sisk said.

Right now the Career Tech Center operates at full capacity along with 12 portable classrooms.

“We have more career tech programs at one center than any in the state — 25 programs currently,” Sisk said.

The added space from the additional classrooms is something Sisk said would help expand classes emphasizes science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics.

“It’s an opportunity because a lot of the principles we’re teaching, we’ll be able to take it to a different level with the new space,” he said, further using the print shop as an example for a separate work space and classroom.

Sisk said the existing classes that would move to ACE are pre-engineering, information technology, graphic design, teacher and learning and the history classroom.

The amount of time a student spent on the bus going to ACE would be the same as it is now — less than an hour, Sisk said.

He said the main thing for board members to keep in mind when they place their votes is that there is a need for additional career classes such as plumbing, block laying and construction.

Athens Limestone Career Tech Center director Vince Green said right now the biggest suggestion for programs he has heard has been construction.

“They’re suffering from lack of skilled laborers and it’s doing nothing but plummeting,” he said. “They are seeing a tremendous need for carpenters, lumbers, electricians and skilled labors — I want to incorporate masonry and plumbing into the building construction class.”

He said the school system would be doing a disservice to their industry partners if they don’t provide students for the jobs needed.

“They’re telling me now they need masons who will stay with them,” he said. “A good construction worker needs to have skills that encompasses all types of work and any of the construction areas and trades we can expose our students to would be nothing but a plus even if they don’t go into laying brick or block for a living.”

Alabama Connections

If Limestone County were to partner with Alabama Connections for a 5-year contract, they would serve students throughout the state and become eligible for more state and federal dollars, what Sisk referred to as a “surplus of revenue.”

He said the school system retains 100 percent of all local funds and in the event Alabama Connections chose to cancel the contraction with Limestone County, they would have to buy the school system out at the $230,000 floor cost.

Board member Bret McGill said after Athens City Schools started the Renaissance School, Limestone County Schools lost nearly 11 percent of funding because ACS began receiving funds based on the amount of students they served.

Sisk said $230,000 could increase if the school system began receiving money per student, which is typically what happens.

If the board approves ACE and the Alabama Connections partnership, Limestone County School System could be in line for additional grants such as the Appalachian Regional Commission grant and a grant from Steelcase worth $100,000.

Sisk told board members he only found out about the Steelcase grant earlier Wednesday.

“I don’t want to spend money building things, I want other people to spend money building things our students can use,” Sisk said. “ACE can do that.”

He said Alabama Connections requires Limestone County to have a 1 percent student enrollment rate.

“They’re not hitting it at an aggressive rate,” he said. “They’ve already got kids waiting to enroll because they want an Alabama high school diploma with Limestone County on it.”

Right now Limestone County has a virtual program but it only serves students within their specific region.

Board members asked if students who attended the virtual school would also be able to participate in Limestone County extracurricular activities.

According to Alabama state law, students who want to play sports or join clubs must do so in public schools that coordinate to their home addresses so students in other parts of the state would not be eligible for Limestone County clubs or sports.

Board member concerns

A major issue board members had with potentially expanding the Career Tech Center is hiring a second school resource officer, hence adding upwards of $30,000 to the proposed budget of $263,937 for ACE.

Board members mentioned the commitment about the building and asked about their commitment to keeping students safe at school since it appeared the current SRO would go to ACE and an Athens Police Department officer patrolling the area would be responsible for the Career Tech campus on Sanderfer Road.

Members agreed they wanted each school to have a law enforcement officer on campus for students’ security.

Sisk told them due to the law enforcement program at school, there is already an officer on campus at all times.

The reason Sisk said he wanted to move the current SRO to ACE is because he plans on moving the Success Academy there too.

Glaze said he didn’t like the idea of splitting the school into two campuses.

“From what I understand, other systems have separated career tech students and those systems are developing plans to recreate what we have now,” he said. “Pulling programs out and sending them to another site doesn’t work in other systems.”

Sisk said the idea of sending career tech programs to each individual high school doesn’t work, but simply adding a second campus, hence adding more room, would benefit students more because they would have more programs to choose from.

“What we’re talking about doing is ACE becoming a career tech center and a lot of different things that allows us to do more learning,” he said.

As far as funding goes, the projected ACE total Sisk gave board members doesn’t include the one-time $40,000 to paint the building — something board members say should be included.

Another board member concern with Alabama Connections is the initiation of charter schools.

Sisk told them Alabama Connections classes would not begin as a charter school but could become one in the future, however right now there is no one in Limestone County authorized to make Alabama Connections a charter school.

After the April 6 board meeting where board members apologized to the public for allowing the school system’s reserve fund for emergency expenses to go 14 percent lower than the state required one month minimum, board members’ greatest concern with ACE is money.

Sisk said the ACE receptionist will also double as a bookkeeper and one custodian will be hired, which will cost approximately $100,000, and the state will reimburse 44,000 of the $56,208 transportation cost and the $170,000 start-up cost to hire a director or counselor.

Phases, timelines and costs

The original ACE plan was set to progress in years but Sisk said he changed it because it seemed more efficient to build it in phases.

Phase one, which is what Sisk wants board members to approve next month, is moving into Owens and transferring the Success Academy.

In Phase two, Sisk said he wants an agriculture program, complete with greenhouses and a poultry house simulator, but told board members it may take years to advance to that. Once it does, however, the space could double as a place for 4-H clubs and members of the extension program.

Green suggested a turf management and landscape design classes.

He said classes could maintain the Owens baseball fields as part of the turf management class.

Sisk suggested the idea of animal husbandry to board members, an idea most of them shot down because of the animal maintenance cost.

Green said even though it wasn’t a good idea to have animals on campus, local farmers may be interested in helping students learn with their animals.

Phase three would incorporate performing arts classes with one visual arts teacher and one music teacher. Sisk plans to renovate the Owens gym into a multi-purpose space that could be used for fine arts performances, robotics competitions and a meeting space for board members — a $200,000 project.

Based on the last year, Owens utility and maintenance operating costs were about $53,000, Sisk said, and he expects that number to stay the same after ACE moves into the building.

Board members asked if there was a way for them to shut off areas of the school that aren’t being used in order to reduce heating and cooling.

Sisk said there was no way for them to shut the rooms off completely, but keeping those classroom doors closed and mitigating the rooms may help cut energy costs.

Decision

McGill asked if ACE would work without Alabama Connections and Sisk said no because the school system doesn’t have the $264,000 on its own.

“Our history when we close a school, within a year or two, we can’t get anything for it at all,” Sisk said. “Where Owens sits right now, it’s not a robust industry so we could sell for acreage but it’s not a huge market.”

McGill and fellow board members decided they wanted Sisk to break Alabama Connections and ACE into two separate votes.

Board members deliberated waiting on ACE for a year but Sisk said they would lose money on the front end because they will still have to maintain the building.

Board members agreed to move the next board meeting to 6 p.m. on Monday.