Board of Education members bring update to Foley Optimist Club, discuss phase four

By Jessica Vaughn
Posted 8/26/19

FOLEY - Director/Chief School Financial Officer John Wilson, Baldwin County Board of Education District 4 Member JaNay Dawson, and Baldwin County Board of Education Superintendent Eddie Tyler spoke …

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Board of Education members bring update to Foley Optimist Club, discuss phase four

Posted

FOLEY - Director/Chief School Financial Officer John Wilson, Baldwin County Board of Education District 4 Member JaNay Dawson, and Baldwin County Board of Education Superintendent Eddie Tyler spoke to the Foley Optimist Club recently about the past, present, and future of the Baldwin County schools. During the meeting, Wilson offered an update on what’s going on in the county involving our schools and a brief history on how we got to where we are today.

“Baldwin County is the fastest growing school system in all of Alabama, averaging about 500 new kids per year over the last few years,” Wilson said. “We were also faced with the issue where the last school built in Baldwin County hadn’t been since 2009.”

During that time, the United States suffered through a recession, while closer to home the county faced the repercussions of the BP oil spill. Combined, this led to layoffs that prevented new constructions or maintenance on Baldwin County schools. Schools became increasingly overcrowded as the area continued to grow despite the state of the country, an issue the Baldwin County School Board is continuing to work to improve.

Since 2015, the board has worked in three phases, or the “pay as you go projects,” to do away with the large number of portables used to house students, build on additions to existing schools, and build new schools in the county, including a new Bay Minette Elementary School, the Foley Mathis Elementary School, a new Belforest Elementary School, and a new Orange Beach Middle and High School. All new schools are expected to open in the fall of 2020.

Going forward to the next phase, Wilson says a major hope of the school board is to pass a bill for school capacity to be included in planning commission consideration for new developments.

“In the middle of construction on the new Foley Elementary, we had to add about three million dollars to expand the number of classrooms,” said Wilson. “One of the reasons we had to expand the number of classrooms is because we continue to be surprised daily at how many new subdivisions and apartments are coming to the area. We’re doing the best that we can with the data that we have available to look at our projections on the long term and try to allocate the resources to best handle that.”

During the last legislative session, Wilson says Senator Chris Elliott introduced a bill stating if anyone was looking to build a new complex over 100 houses or 100 units that the planning commission needed to evaluate school capacity in the decision-making process. The commission currently looks at sewer capacity and road capacity, but not at school capacity.

“We thought it was common sense,” Wilson said. “If we know ahead what’s coming then we can plan for it, and through planning we can make sure that we have facilities to address the growth appropriately. We hope to continue the partnership with all the communities in Baldwin to get on the same page and bring everyone to the table so we can properly manage the growth that is coming.”

Opposition against the bill led to its denial, but Wilson hopes to bring it back and will continue to push for its approval. Along with that, the board is in the planning phase of the fourth pay as you go plan. A large focus during this phase will be revamping the career tech program in Baldwin County through looking at industry demands and ensuring Baldwin students have the ability to study the trade in school.

“There’s a tremendous amount of demand and we as a school system need to do a better job preparing, training, and certifying our kids to be able to fulfill that demand in Baldwin County,” Wilson said. “Not everyone is built for college, but if you learn a trade and can get certified and graduate high school making $60-$70 thousand a year while filling a demand without any student loan debt, that’s a pretty incredible thing and we want to advance it as much as possible.”

For more info on the Baldwin County Board of Education, you can check out their website at www.bcbe.org.