School growth slows

By Cindy Landrum  

FEBRUARY 28, 2011 8:16 a.m. (0)

While growth has slowed significantly in Greenville County, Greenville County Schools will still need a new middle school and an addition to Woodmont High by 2015 to cope with overcrowding.

Two other new schools – a high school in southern Greenville County and a middle school in the northern end – remain in the plan designed to accommodate the district’s projected enrollment through 2025.

The revised plan, which looked at updated birth rates, planned subdivisions, school program changes and the economy, also calls for the conversion of an expanded Rudolph Gordon Elementary to a K-8 school and additions to seven other elementary and high schools.

The board has updated its long-range facilities plan each year since its $1 billion school construction program was largely completed. A.J. Whittenberg Elementary, the last school included in the plan and the last to be completed, opened in August. It is South Carolina’s first elementary school with a school-wide engineering curriculum.

The school board was not asked to approve funding for the plan. Financing will be handled separately and presented to the board as projects come up.

The plan calls for a new middle school to be built on the campus of the old J.L. Mann High by 2015. The 750-student school would relieve overcrowding at Beck, Bryson, Hillcrest, Mauldin and Riverside middle schools.

The plan also calls for construction of a 400-student addition to Woodmont High.

Between 2016 and 2018, the district plans to build a 200-seat addition to Mountain View Elementary, a 227-seat addition to Fork Shoals Elementary and a 400-seat addition to J.L. Mann High.

In addition, the district plans to add 250 seats to Rudolph Gordon Elementary and turn it into a K-8 school. That conversion will ease overcrowding at Rudolph Gordon, Bryson Middle, Hillcrest Middle and Riverside Middle.

The board also voted to keep 2017 as the date for a proposed new high school in southern Greenville County. District administrators had suggested delaying construction of that new school until some time between 2019 and 2025.

The 1,000-seat high school would relieve overcrowding at Mauldin, Hillcrest and Woodmont high schools.

Several elementary schools will get additions during the latter part of the plan.

The plan calls for 196 additional seats at Ellen Woodside, 236 additional seats at Robert E. Cashion and 170 additional seats at Simpsonville @Morton. Those additions will eliminate the need to construct a new elementary school in the southwestern portion of the county, planners said.

The conversion of Rudolph Gordon to a K-8 school would eliminate the need for a new southern middle school as called for in last year’s plan.

The latest version of the plan also calls for a 250-seat Ralph Chandler Middle.

District planners say enrollment growth has slowed because of a decrease in births, a drop in single-family home construction and an increase in foreclosures.

The long-range facilities plan has a $226.7 million price tag.

The plan includes athletic facility improvements, replacement of capital equipment such as classroom furniture and heating and air conditioning units and activity buses.

The board directed the administration to add to the plan a way to increase the K-4 program in northern Greenville County.