LOUDON COUNTY, Tenn. — In the halls of Eaton Elementary School in North Loudon County, Ashley Baessler walks through the halls with students doing reading enrichment in the hallways while other students take an ESL class in a storage closet converted into a classroom. Baessler is the school's principal.
A proposed $115 million dollar project, paid for by a $0.25 increase per $100 dollars worth of property value on the county's property tax rate, would add 11 classrooms and an auditorium to Philadelphia Elementary School. It would also upgrade the athletic facilities at Greenback School. The project could also result in a new school serving 7th-graders through 12th-graders in the northern end of the county, next to First Baptist Church.
Mike Garren, the director of Loudon County Schools, said the district is behind the eight-ball when it comes to having enough space for all the students in the county.
"We anticipate a lot of development over the next few years," Garren said. "This is not a short-term, band-aid fix. This is a generational fix. This school is gonna take care of issues in the long run and that's what the board wanted to do."
But not everyone in the county is convinced there's enough need for a new school, or that upgrades to two existing schools are the best use of taxpayer money.
Blake Moore and others in Loudon County are asking the district to contract out a different needs assessment. Some county commissioners have estimated that would cost around $100,000.
"Our challenge with that is there has not been a true needs analysis that has been done to be able to validate it," Blake Moore, who has lived in Loudon County for over 10 years said. "There is a distinct need for us to always be fiscally conservative in what we're looking at from a cost perspective."
The Tennessee Department of Education released a report card with the enrollment numbers for Loudon County. The numbers from the Loudon County Board of Education are higher. Garren said this is because the state counts K-12 students and doesn't account for Pre-K or some special education students.
Moore said he believes students who attend county schools despite being zoned for Lenoir City Schools, and vice versa, should be considered in the assessment.
"Why do we continue to have open enrollment in Loudon County?" Moore said. "Why don't we tell the students that they have to go to the school they're zoned in? Let's figure that out first. Let's determine first and foremost what the need is. Let's set everyone in a classroom or in the seat if you will, they're supposed to be in."