Updated 10/28/19

During the last Giles County School Board meeting acting director Vickie Beard and County Executive Melissa Greene were asked to recommend an idea of who should serve on a committee to explore the best approach for the renovation of all county schools.

The creation of the committee will be one of several items on the school board’s agenda for the Thursday, November 7th, regular meeting.

Acting Director of Schools Vickie Beard told board members that a representative of Energy Savings Group (ESG) presented to her, Assistant Director of Schools Keith Stacey and Supervisor of Maintenance Mike Watson a scaled back version of the company’s proposal to upgrade county schools.

Beard said ESG proposes cutting the project down to just renovations at Giles County High School and Bridgeforth Middle School, which have been mentioned as the two schools most in need. The limited project removes all proposed work at Giles County’s six other schools with the exception of a district wide HVAC direct control system at a cost of $10.2 million dollars.

School Board Chairman Richie Brewer said the scaled back proposal is unacceptable because it leaves six schools with no renovations.

According to Beard, the ESG representative said if any work on the project is to be done during the summer of 2020, decisions would need to be made by this December.

“To me it’s pretty simple,”Board member Knox Vanderpool said. “We have to figure out how much money we’re going to spend and how much money the commission is willing to spend and then we’ve got to put together a plan.

At the end of the discussion, school board member Jim Stewart proposed the creation of an interdisciplinary committee be put on the November 7th meeting agenda. Stewart proposed the committee include a school board member, county commissioner and other officials integral to the school buildings discussion.