Architects Unveil Site Plans for New Elementary School (VIEW VIDEO AND PDF OF PLANS HERE)

March 14, 2019
By: Dwayne Page

The Board of Education and Director of Schools Thursday night got their first look at the schematic design, site plan, and floor plan for a new Smithville Elementary School.

(CLICK LINK AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE TO VIEW PDF PLANS OF NEW SCHOOL)

Architects of Upland Design Group met with the board and director during an hour long presentation of the plans they have developed.

Four site plan options were presented for the proposed 109,000 square foot school with a student capacity of 800 for pre-kindergarten to second grade. All four options would have the new school on the same campus as Northside Elementary School.

The first site plan option proposes to fit the new school on the existing property with no additional land acquisition necessary. However, the architects said this option poses challenges as the new building would encroach on a natural sloping drainage area and playground space would be limited.

Option #2 proposes to expand the campus with the acquisition of 12 acres

Option #3 seeks to expand the campus with the addition of 21 acres.

(THE VIDEO BELOW SHOWS A PRESENTATION OF THE SCHEMATIC DESIGN AND THE SITE PLAN OPTIONS AND FLOOR PLAN FOR THE PROPOSED NEW PRE-K TO 2ND GRADE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TO BE BUILT ON THE PROPERTY AT NORTHSIDE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. ARCHITECTS OF UPLAND DESIGN GROUP PRESENTED THE PLANS TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION THURSDAY NIGHT)

M2U02938 from dwayne page on Vimeo.

Option #4 would expand the Northside Elementary campus with the acquisition of 110 acres to provide room for construction of the new pre-K to 2^nd grade school and for future construction of a new high school (modeled after Stone Memorial High School in Crossville).

The Board of Education has not yet decided on which site plan option they will pursue but the floor plan for the new school will be as designed by the Upland Group.

The floor plan for the new elementary school calls for the building to have 10-second grade classrooms, 10-first grade classrooms, 10 kindergarten classrooms, and 8-pre kindergarten classrooms, plus the CDC and special education classrooms. Each classroom can accommodate up to 20 students.

Although the school is designed to be long, architects say the travel or walking distance for students on either end of the building to the shared space (center of the school) would only be 350 feet.

Once the Board of Education selects a site plan option, a Tennessee Department of Transportation traffic study will be conducted for the site.

School Board Meeting (PDF)

March 14, 2019
By: Dwayne Page

Based on overall high marks given by the Board of Education in a recent performance evaluation, Director of Schools Patrick Cripps has been awarded a two year contract extension, effective July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2022.

During Thursday night’s regular monthly meeting, the Board voted unanimously to grant the extension.

Cripps will earn the same salary $90,000 per year paid in twelve equal monthly installments in accordance with the policy. All other terms of Cripps’ contract also remain unchanged.

Cripps’ contract was to run through June 30, 2020, but with the two year extension, he will now serve as Director at least through June 30, 2022. Cripps has been Director since July, 2015.

Cripps was recently evaluated again by the Board and given overall good marks.

Results of the Board of Education’s annual performance evaluation of Director Cripps show he is meeting “most” expectations of the board.

Cripps’ overall average score is 4.22 out of a possible 6 score.

In accordance with state law, the school board is required to develop and implement an evaluation plan to be used annually for the director of schools. Board members used a four page evaluation form to rate Director Cripps (1-6) in each of 60 areas from eight categories including on his relationship with the Board, the Community, Staff and Personnel, Educational Leadership, Business and Finance, Personal Qualities, Strategic Planning Skills, and Tennessee Specific questions.

A rating of “1” meant his performance was “Consistently Below Expectations”. A “5” rating signified that Cripps “Met All Expectations”. A rating with an asterisk (*) symbol or 6 meant he “Exceeded Expectations”.

Other ratings were:
“2”-Meets Few Expectations
“3”-Meets Some Expectations
“4”-Meets Most Expectations

Each board member scored Cripps in all areas from the categories on the form. The scores were then averaged to arrive at the grand total score. The completed forms were sent to officials of the Tennessee School Boards Association where the scores were tabulated and averaged.

In the overall evaluation report, Cripps scored highest (4.50) in “personal qualities”. He scored lowest (3.90) in “strategic planning skills”.

A breakdown of Cripps’ scores in the eight goals evaluation were:

Performance Goal Average
Board Relationship
4.32

Community Relationships
4.10

Staff and Personnel Relationships
4.20

Educational Leadership
4.29

Business and Finance
4.38

Personal Qualities
4.50

Strategic Planning Skills
3.90

Tennessee Specific Questions
4.04

Grand Total
4.22

In other business, Director Cripps gave his monthly report on personnel.

Those granted a leave of absence are Brooke Anderson, teacher at Smithville Elementary School; Lacey Foutch, teacher at DCHS, and Martha Melching, teacher at DeKalb Middle School.

March 14, 2019
By: Dwayne Page

Circuit Court Clerk Susan Martin needs more help and office space.

During a budget committee meeting of the county commission Wednesday night, Martin made a formal request for an additional deputy clerk. She currently has three clerks working for her.

“I did a two week span of what our office does as far as customers and on average in those two weeks, we collected over $4,200 a day. We also averaged 88 calls a day and saw approximately 52 customers per day,” said Martin.

“With three clerks in the office, sometimes that is hard because on top of just those daily customers, we have as many as three courts going on at the same time which requires three of the four of us being out of the office. If it’s a circuit/criminal court day, there are always two clerks in the courtroom, which is me and another girl and three times, since I have been in office, I have had to close my office doors because we have had multiple courts going on at the same time. In one incident, one of my deputy clerks had to be out one  day and we had three courts going on so we had to shut everything down. When I shut everything down there is no money coming in to the office unless they are paying online. I definitely feel a need for a new clerk in my office and along with that is going to come office space,” said Martin.

The circuit court clerk’s office is located on the third floor of the courthouse and Martin has a personal office she works out of across the hall from the main office where her deputy clerks work.

Martin told the committee that she would like more space, possibly in the middle section of the second floor of the courthouse, where she and her employees could all work out of the same office.

“My office is running over with files and we currently house files on all three floors in the courthouse,” she said.

The state will soon be requiring electronic filing of some court documents which will also create a space problem.

“Tennessee will soon be mandating e-filing which means if you are a pro se attorney and you come in to my office with a piece of paper and say I want to file a divorce, we’re going to say you can’t do that. You will have to sit down at a computer, swipe a credit card, and pay a fee and scan it yourself manually. It’s coming this year. That will require us to have a desk , computer, and chair for them and there is no where to put that in my office,” said Martin.

There is also a security issue

“I am across the hallway from my girls. This past week I had a lady in there yelling. I had to come in behind her which is never a good scenario to walk up behind somebody who is not happy. A majority of the time when somebody comes into our office, they are not there because they like being there. They’ve got a ticket, their kids are being removed , they’re getting a divorce. There’s just many different things. It’s not always that they are thrilled to see us but we try to make the best of it with them. My girls have done a very good job of always being very personable and polite to them,” Martin continued.

Budget committee chairman Dennis Slager informed Martin that her request for more space would have to be addressed by another committee

Although she has been in office just over six months, Martin said she has already done much to update the office with new technology.

“We have accomplished many things in a short time including adding scanners. We are scanning the minute books and everything which puts a copy to the state and a copy on the hard drive and we have a copy as well. We now have a website which allows our users to make payments online and that has been very successful. We are starting to collect a lot more fees that way. In fact we have a lot of citizens who come through from other counties who get on there and they are more than happy to pay their ticket that way. We have seen an increase in that,” said Martin.

According to the wage scale for county general  employees, a new worker with one year of service is paid $26,786.

The budget committee took no action on Martin’s request Wednesday night but will consider it when finalizing the 2019-20 spending plan to send to the county commission.

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