DALTON, Ga. — Construction for Dalton High School’s original opening was completed in 1977, and the last new school-sized construction project completed by Dalton Public Schools was in 2005 with the opening of Blue Ridge Elementary School.

So for the better part of the last two decades, the school system has been fighting an uphill battle of growing student populations crowding into the hallways and classrooms of its schools.

On Monday, members of the Dalton Board of Education, school administrators and officials from Carroll Daniel Construction held a ceremonial groundbreaking for construction of the Hammond Creek Middle School. The nearly $47 million facility that will house approximately 1,200 sixth- and seventh-graders is scheduled to open in August of 2021.

“I remember some of the meetings we had … and we said we were going to get this problem solved that we identified obviously that we had outgrown our surroundings,” school board Chairman Rick Fromm said. “If you take a look at the history of Dalton Public Schools and the growing enrollment, most of the time you have lived through it and you don’t recognize some of what has taken place over the last 20 years.”

In 2017, voters approved the issuing of bonds to build the new school on property across U.S. 41/the north bypass from Dalton Middle School. The plan calls for the current middle school, which will become Dalton Junior High School, to house eighth- and ninth-grade students, alleviating overcrowding at both the middle school and Dalton High. The students at Morris Innovative, a non-traditional high school, will move from the current Fort Hill location to Dalton Junior High School.

Fromm said that from 1999 to 2019 the school system has grown by approximately 3,000 students. Since the completion of Blue Ridge, the nation went through a recession that particularly impacted the floorcovering industry and lowered the tax base that local governments draw upon.

“We’ve worked on this for years and years and years back to when Morris Innovative opened up nearly 10 years ago,” said Deputy Superintendent Don Amonett. “Ten years ago, we knew we needed to do something, but the community could not afford it. It simply could not.”

Since then, construction and expansion at Dalton schools have been piecemeal patchworks of additions here and upgrades there.

“Those were Band-Aids to address the issue, but not really solutions to it,” Amonett said. “Finally as the recession was getting over and everything was getting better, it was time to come out and really do something to fix it for the long term.”

The proper approach has been a source for debate and varying plans for the better part of a decade. Fromm, who was a board member and later became chairman during those years, said seeing the project come to fruition has been worth the process.

“There is a great deal of satisfaction,” Fromm said. “A lot of the length of time was out of necessity, obviously with the recession and the changes that occur. One thing that stayed consistent throughout was the vision as a whole, and what we wanted to accomplish didn’t change, but what we were able to develop was some evolving strategies that allowed us to fine-tune and come up with a model that really fits our district.

“Truly, I think if we would have been able to come up with the money in 2009, it was a building that would have satisfied our need for Morris and Dalton High, but it wouldn’t have been a magnet school we are trying to create (with Morris), and it certainly wouldn’t have addressed the overcrowding at the middle school,” Fromm said.