DALTON, Ga. — The Whitfield County Board of Education this week approved a $26.6 million contract with Womack, Lewis and Smith of Cartersville to build the new North Whitfield Middle School.

The school is being built on 60 acres of land near the Edwards Park recreation complex with funds from a five-year Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST) that voters approved in March of 2017. That tax is expected to collect $98 million, with Whitfield County Schools receiving $61 million and Dalton Public Schools $37 million based on each system’s share of enrollment.

“Site work will begin this summer and it will take approximately two years to build depending on weather,” said Superintendent Judy Gilreath.

Board members also approved compliance procedures to issue $14.62 million in bonds that will be repaid from the ESPLOST. Gilreath said borrowing money allows the school system to speed up the work rather than wait for money to come in during the life of the tax. The referendum approved by voters allows the school system to borrow up to $41 million.

School officials broke ground last September on a new Valley Point Middle School, the other major Whitfield County Schools project that is being funded by the ESPLOST. It is being built next to the existing school at a cost of just under $22 million.

“We have been planning these projects for three years and have used other local and state funding to ‘pay as we go’ so far on Valley Point Middle,” Gilreath said. “We are fiscally sound because of careful planning and budgeting. Budgeting and planning as we have will enable us to sell fewer bonds.”