American Constructors site superintendent Dwight Jarratt gave the Bradley County Board of Education an update on the elementary school’s construction status during the school board’s meeting Thursday.
Jarratt said within the last 30 days construction crews have completed geothermal well drilling, sidewalks, curbing and paving the parking lot, with the exception of the entrance road which will be completed within the next few weeks. All interior painting, flooring and ceiling tile installations have also been finished.
“Within the next 30 days we’ll be doing grading and top-soil now that the curbs are in. And, we’ll be seeding and strawing the green areas. Final paving and striping will be done in the parking lot, too,” he said.
An exact move-in date has yet to be announced by the construction company; however, the school system has been told to prepare for late September.
The Fine Arts Center construction project at Bradley Central is also moving along, according to Cason Conn, of TriCon Inc.
Conn said site workers have completed footing and foundation work. And the masonry work is steadily progressing.
Conn said so far the building is 20 percent complete and construction crews have yet to run into any major problems.
“We’re 20 percent into the building and its construction. Typically at this point if you have a glitch, contingency problem or if I’m going to be asking for more money — we’re at this point and we haven’t had to. When we did the excavation there were no problems, the foundation, no problems. We’ll just keep our fingers crossed and keep on moving forward,” said Conn.
In other business, with the new changes in state education standards, the Bradley County School System is preparing for lower grades on the state report card this year. The new standards grade schools on four performance levels: advanced, proficient, basic and below basic, according to Bradley County Schools Coordinator Data Analyst/Testing Dr. Sharon Harper.
“Across the state we are seeing a shift to lower scores,” said Harper.
Harper said Tennessee Department of Education Commissioner Tim Webb has requested leniency with the federal government.
“We don’t know if we’re going to be granted that yet,” said Harper.
Harper said her department is conducting needs assessments across the district. She said the department is planning to utilize the Race to the Top (also called RTTT) professional development training to prepare teachers on how to coordinate their lesson plans and teaching methods according to the new standards.
Bradley County Schools will receive $1.4 million from the $4.35 billion Race to the Top federal grant.
Bradley County Schools scheduled six early dismissal days in the 2010-11 school year to allow teacher training/professional development days as part of the RTTT grant.
The early dismissal dates are Sept. 1, Oct. 6, Nov. 3, Dec. 1, Feb. 2, 2011, and March 2, 2011. Elementary schools will be dismissed at 12:30 p.m. and secondary schools at 1:20 p.m. The six days will be used from the school system’s 13 stockpile days, leaving seven days for emergencies or inclement weather.
The county schools supervisor of media services/federal projects said the early dismissal days were recommended by a wide variety of individuals including parents from every school, teachers and principals.
“We took the recommendation from parents to do early release instead of a late start,” said Terri Murray, the services and projects supervisor.
The Bradley County Board of Education will next meet Sept. 2, at 5:30 p.m.
