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Superintendent Steve Johnson shares preliminary drawings with the school board for the planned multipurpose building for Miller Grove ISD. Staff photo by Taylor Nye
Superintendent contract renewed
School Board
MILLER GROVE — The Miller Grove ISD school board continued to discuss plans for a new multipurpose building, among other items of business at the regular January board meeting Monday evening.
After opening at 6 p.m., there were no citizens present for public forum. The board unanimously approved the consent agenda. There was no outstanding journal voucher for the month of January.
The board then entered into executive session to discuss the terms of the superintendent’s contract from 6:18 p.m. to 6:48 p.m. and were joined by Superintendent Steve Johnson until 7:28 p.m. After reconvening into open session, the board unanimously approved an extension of Johnson’s contract by a period of one year and an increase in pay consistent with the next wage “step.”
Under the agenda item marked “matters for discussion only,” Johnson reminded the board of their board training next month.
Johnson also presented to the board two drawings from architectural firm for their new multipurpose building, “based on, kind of baseline what he was hearing,” Johnson said.
The designs Johnson showed featured two different layouts but were essentially the same size building. One had two basketball courts and classrooms, while the other had one basketball court, a stage and an open-air, covered concession area.
Johnson said his “educated guess” proposal measured 125 feet by 165 feet with roof insulation would cost around $2 million.
“My concern is that if we scale it down to one court, we’ll lose the classrooms we wanted,” Johnson said.
“If it’s the same slab [foundation] either way, maybe we could make room for classrooms to expand in the future,” board member Brett Garrett stated.
Johnson said that on the other hand, having just one court, which is necessary for a stage, would be useful in holding school-wide assemblies.
“It would really be nice to have graduation there,” board president Brandon Darrow said.
“Graduation gets so crowded,” Johnson agreed.
“What you need to do is hold graduation on the track,” high school principal Coach Gary Billingsley said.
“Aw snap, son!” exclaimed board member Ray Sparks.
The school recently installed a new state-of-the-art running track, painted what Johnson refers to as “hornet green.”
“It’s got lights and everything; it’s pretty weather,” Sparks said. “It’s not too hot; well, not in May.”
“We used to have them [graduations] outside on the front yard; every one of y’all graduated on that front yard,” elementary school principal Jaime Fox told the board.
Sparks said that he had graduated in the “new gym” as he was a “young pup.”
Garrett wanted to clarify the “money number we need to be at,” and Johnson instructed that the cost of the project should be at or below $2.4 million.
“I just want to make sure it really does cost that, and we don’t have to fundraise another million after we finish to get it in use,” Garrett said.
The board agreed with Garrett.
“Until we really get some plans and submit the bid for a cost we’re really not going to know,” Darrow pointed out.
The board resolved to continue discussing plans for the multi-purpose building.
With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 8:26 p.m.