School board OKs bonds for EL construction

The first step toward financing the construction of a new East Laurens Elementary School and East Laurens Middle School athletic complex occurred last week.

The Laurens County Board of Education approved issuing revenue bonds with Raymond James Financial during a meeting held last Thursday. Superintendent O.J. Hall said the approval of a bond resolution allows the board to move forward in the process of receiving the bond money.

“This was allowed by the voters last fall when they approved the ESPLOST and the bonds at the same time (last November),” Hall said. “The voters allowed us to move forward with obtaining bonds, and of course we go through the process with Raymond James of securing the bonds. This meeting met all of the approvals for the bond resolution, the purchase agreement, the program resolution and the tax recommendation so that we now can receive the funds.”

The Laurens County Commission is scheduled to hear about this during its Tuesday meeting at noon, because it is the collection agency. The LCBOE’s attorney Ryan Dixon was on the county commissioners’ agenda.

“That project will help with the beautification of the whole campus,” Hall said. “We already have the new East Laurens High School and a phenomenal athletic complex that goes with that. East Laurens Middle School has a newly renovated building because they moved into what was the old East Laurens High School. We spent the whole year renovating it.” 

Now ELE will have a brand new school and ELMS will get its own new athletic complex. Hall hopes construction for new elementary school will begin this summer. The school must be completed before work on the ELMS athletic complex can start.

“Once everyone from the elementary school moves into the new one, we can start demolition on the old East Laurens Elementary School, because we will need that space for the athletic complex,” Hall said. “It will be done in stages.” 

In other meeting news, the board:

– Approved new furniture for Southwest Laurens Elementary School. 

“Clifford Garnto (former LCBOE superintendent) began this a few years ago,” Hall said. “Each year, there is a new school in rotation to have furniture replaced. That allows us to keep from getting backlogged and our teachers and students are learning in environments that are safe. Each year a school is in rotation until we get it all replaced. It had been so long since furniture had been replaced, and we were kind of piecemealing it, so we decided to start putting everybody on a cycle until we ran everybody through one time.” 

– Approved the revised board policy for public participation in board meetings.

– Congratulated custodians Mark Denson, William Coleman, Jackey Lewis and Lynn Cutler at East Laurens Elementary School for winning the Clean School Award.

– Heard the first reading of revised board policy for internet acceptable use. This will be voted on during the May 8 meeting.

– Approved the retirement of Randy Gay, CTAE director at Laurens County Schools.

– Approved the resignation of Bill Carman, teacher at ELHS, and Leslie Watson Sowell, teacher at SWLE.

– Approved the transfers of Josh Back, from teacher at ELMS to WLMS, and Jessica Bracewell, teacher from ELE to SWLE.

– Approved the change of duties for Robyn Meeks, from counselor at NWLE to LCSS as mental health counselor; Laura Sanders, from teacher at NWLE to assistant principal at NWLE; Leidy White, from teacher at ELHS to instructional coach at ELHS.

– Approved the following new hires: Jackie Anderson, teacher at ELE; Broughton Bellamy, teacher at WLMS; Theresa Booker, teacher at ELMS; Harley Chalker, teacher at ELMS; Melissa Churchwell, teacher at ELMS; Nurka Holmes, teacher at ELMS; Brittany Hood, teacher at ELMS; Daryl O’Neal, teacher at ELMS; Chastity O’Neal-Willis, teacher at ELMS; Jon Eric Senn, teacher at ELMS.