New middle school proposed

September 28, 1998|By DAVE McMILLION, Charles Town

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. - The plans for an expansion of Jefferson High School have changed again.

Most recently, the Jefferson County Board of Education proposed building a separate ninth-grade center adjacent to the high school.

But the state School Building Authority has indicated the school system would not receive state funding for the project, said Board of Education President C. Larry Togans.

Now the board wants to build a new middle school and temporarily use the building to house ninth-grade students, said Togans.

The change means the board will have to return the $10.6 million it received from the School Building Authority and reapply for the money to build the middle school, said Togans.

It is not known where the middle school would be built, although a site near the high school is still a possibility, he said.

The county's ninth-graders would stay in the middle school until a second high school is built in the county, said Togans.

Those students would then be divided among the two high schools, along with 10th-, 11th- and 12th-grade students, he said.

School officials initially wanted to expand Jefferson High and move the county's 600 ninth-graders into the building. Ninth-graders are being moved to the high school level as part of the county's plan to move from a junior high- to a middle-school concept.

School officials began considering other ways of expanding Jefferson High after three bids for expanding the school were higher than the cost estimates developed by school officials.

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