Published: July 23, 2008 08:17 pm            

PikeView Middle: Tentative spring 2011 completion

PRINCETON — A new middle school approved by a three to two vote of the Mercer County Board of Education is tentatively scheduled to be completed in spring 2011.

After eight public hearings at Oakvale, Lashmeet/ Matoaka, Spanishburg and Athens schools, the school board voted Tuesday evening to accept a $12.5 million state School Building Authority grant. The grant will help finance the construction of a new facility, PikeView Middle School on the campus of PikeView High School.

Sixth, seventh and eighth- grade students from each of the four schools will attend the new middle school. The schools’ reconfiguration into K-5 facilities and the transfer of the sixth through eighth- grade students would occur the school year following PikeView Middle School’s completion, according to the memo approved by the vote.

Board President Greg Prudich said Wednesday that the school’s architect had to have the design for the school’s educational spaces done by Aug. 17.

The plans are tentative, but they now include six science labs — two for each grade —and a computer lab for each grade.

PikeView Middle School will have a student body similar in size to Athens School, he said.

“The estimate right now is 540 (students),” he said. “That would be the projection at its peak. In the next decade we could see it level off in the high 400s. It’s the size of Athens right now.”

Sixth through eighth-grade teachers now serving at the four schools feeding into PikeView Middle School could have the first opportunity to fill positions there, Prudich said. When Bluefield Intermediate School and Princeton Primary School were built, the county’s school personnel were asked to allow their colleagues who served at the schools replaced by the two new facilities to have the first opportunity to obtain positions at them.

The local school system will provide $3 million of PikeView Middle School’s approximately $15.5 million price tag. State officials will forward $6,245,843 for the current school year, then allocate the same amount again at a later date, according to the memo document.

        

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