Expansion is on the horizon, and steadily drawing nearer, for Tharptown Elementary and Tharptown High schools, with the Franklin Board of Education approving a contractor bid last week.

At the Feb. 28 school board meeting, the board awarded the bid for renovation and addition to TES and THS to RDT Enterprises, in the amount of $2,495,425, with a unanimous vote.

The planned addition/renovation includes renovating the current cafeteria, which is used by all Tharptown students, into four classrooms for the elementary grades, to limit the need for mobile classroom units – which were made necessary by an explosion in enrollment, both from steady growth of the school over the years as well as an influx of students from the Russellville City Schools system following RCS’ implementation of a tuition policy – as well constructing a new, larger cafeteria for use by all grades.

Assistant Superintendent Donald Borden said the hope is that construction will be complete by November. “We were hoping to be in it by summer, but that’s not going to happen now,” Borden said. “But we’re excited to be moving along.”

Borden said the process was delayed when the system had to rebid the project. All initial bids came back over budget, so the system had to remove some cafeteria equipment to bring the project in budget.

“I am so excited. The teachers, the students, everyone has been asking, ‘When are they going to break ground, Ms. Scott?’” TES Principal Ann Scott said. She said there is no decision yet on what grades/classes will be moved into the new classrooms once completed. “We’re going to look at our numbers for next year and how many students and teachers who will be in each grade level and go from there.”

Construction should begin within the next month.

The board also voted to roll out a new teacher/support bonus incentive. The program will pilot for the nine-week period from March 13 through May 24. With the new policy, teachers who do not take off a single day during the nine-week period will be given a $100 bonus.

“We’re trying to cut down on sub cost, and we also hope it will help with discipline issues,” Superintendent Greg Hamilton explained. Substitute cost, Hamilton said, is $60 a day – which is, of course, on top of still paying the teacher for the vacation or sick day. “If it works well – drops sub costs and reduces student discipline issues – we will (continue the incentive in the fall).”

The board also:

• Reviewed the school’s Student Incident Report, which documents, among other facts and figures, more than 200 instances of corporal punishment during the last school year.
• Approved out-of-state trips.
• Approved required federal programs, including the foster care plan, school choice plan, ELL plan, Title I plan and complaints procedure, among others.
• Approved the following personnel changes: resignation of Donnie Roberts as Red Bay varsity girls basketball coach; employment of Kevin Scott as a bus mechanic, Victoria Jones as a half-time special education teacher at East Franklin and Johnny Cleveland as a part time federal programs assistant; resignation of Tracey Fretwell as head cheerleading coach at Tharptown; employment of Stephen King as assistant softball coach at Vina, Walker Kennerly as head baseball coach at East Franklin and Cheryl Letson as head varsity cheerleading coach at Tharptown; and new volunteer assistant coaches – Morgan McCarley for Vina baseball, Keith Seahorn for Red Bay golf, Jonathan Ergle for Tharptown softball, David Ward for Vina baseball, Cameron Harris for Belgreen baseball and Charles Hogan for Belgreen softball.

The next board meeting will be March 21 at 5:15 p.m., preceded by a work session at 5 p.m.