The Fayette County School Board recently sold its administrative building and surrounding land to the city of Fayetteville for around $3 million. Those funds were to be used to renovate the A and B buildings at the Lafayette Education Center (part of the old Fayette County High School building) for the superintendent and his staff for administrative offices.
The contract for renovation is $8 million. This figure apparently does not include work done by the board’s maintenance and technology departments.
Four questions arise:
1. What happened to the previous plan to use the LEC for post secondary learning? Remember the center was to be used for college/career/ technical classes.
2. How has the decision to spend an extra $5 million on the central office affected the priority list of facility needs for the schools?
3. Where is Booth’s transformation on the list now? (Remember plans for BMS were talked about three years ago.)
4. Why did the district not use the $5 million to build an expansion at the current location? (Remember there are architectural plans already drawn for that site.)
Three pillars of greatness for Fayette County have always been quality of life, quality of safety, and quality of the school system The offices of the school system have been front and center on the main street in Fayetteville.
What meaning can be attached to these offices being moved off the main thoroughfare? What meaning can be attached to the proposed logo not having an educational theme? Are we striving for excellence only in creativity? Is all of this an omen of what lies ahead for Fayette County Schools? Just asking.
Marion Key
Fayetteville, Ga.
[Key is a former multi-term member of the Board of Education.]
