The Overton County School Board approved a new five-year strategic plan Tuesday night, which includes a focus on addressing future building maintenance.
School Board Member Ben Danner said in the past, the school system had not been looking into the future when it comes to maintenance of school buildings. Danner said the building program inside the strategic plan would implement a maintenance schedule to replace air conditioning units and other things in the schools.
“It seems like all of the stuff would tear up all at once,” Danner said. “So we are trying to look at that for the future, because we know we are gonna keep growing. Rickman is gonna keep growing. That’s why we added extra classrooms there. So, you know, we are just looking at that five-year plan to see where the growth is going to be at and see what we can do to help right now.”
Danner said the school board will have to look at budgeting for the building program because funds may not be available for maintenance projects that the school board wants to complete. Danner said the school board wants to avoid the same mistake it made in the early 2000s when new schools opened and were immediately overcrowded.
“The county cut back some of what they were gonna do to save money, and, you know, a lot of times you have to do that,” Danner said. “But when they opened them schools, they were already overcrowded to start with. So what we looked at on this building program was to go ahead and build them bigger to start with.”
Danner said improving the Livingston Academy Softball Field is included in the strategic plan. Danner said some of those improvements would consist of redoing the fences and redoing the dugouts. Danner said he believes the school board’s aspirations for improving school facilities are achievable, but a lot can change five years from now.
“The state sometimes changes, you know, they have done the voucher program,” Danner said. “We don’t know what that’s gonna look like five years from now. I hope it’s not how we think it’s gonna look, but if it does, it may affect funding locally because we may have more children go to other areas and go to private schools. So you just got to, you know, make a plan with the information that you have got right now and try to work toward that and hope five years from now that some of the things that we think could happen do not.”
The school board nominated Mike Hayes to serve as the building program consultant. Danner said the school board keeps looking to improve student scores. However, Danner said it is tough to implement a strategic plan to improve student scores as the state is constantly changing its requirements and processes.
In other business, the board approved its 2025 LEA Compliance Report.
The board accepted the retirement of Katherine Ray and the resignation of Eddie Presley.
Director of Schools Kim Dillon honored all of the principals for their hard work and dedication to the school system and students as part of Principal Appreciation Week.