TIFTON — The Tift County Board of Education heard updates on ongoing school improvements at the Sept. 11 meeting.

Chief Operations Officer Robby Dasher updated the board about SPLOST project updates, which include construction and renovations to Tift County High School, Northeast Middle School and Eighth Street Middle School.

Dasher said that the final leg of the construction project, the auxiliary gym, has “picked up a lot of steam.”

“The unsuitable soils have been addressed,” he said. “They’re out and we are looking to pour concrete for the court area on Friday. The rest of the building’s concrete has been poured already. Everything is looking very good with that project.”

Dasher said that the renovations on the high school are also very close to being complete.

“We have finished the college and career academy offices,” he said. “We’ve gotten the certificate of occupancy for the entire building. They are working on the metal portions of the roof, the eave trim and that sort of thing, and we’re working through a few issues on the communication side of our heat and air system, but that is very quickly coming to a close.”

The demolition of the locker rooms and gym at Northeast has already begun, but the work on the restrooms at ESMS will wait until materials are on site to minimize disruption for students, faculty and staff, said Dasher.

Craig Matthews, director of Career, Technical and Agricultural Education, presented a review of the local CTAE plan to the board.

“The local plan is an explanation of how we will be supporting our CTAE program with local funds, with state funds and with federal funds,” Matthews said. “Our local funds are requirements that we have to spend on our programs to receive these state grants and federal funds. This year our federal funds are $81,856, which is to my knowledge the highest ever. That’s due to enrollment in our CTAE programs. As our enrollment continues to increase our funding will increase.”

Matthews said that the professional development grant, which is $7,118 this year, will go towards professional development for staff, and that the program will be receiving a total of $98,218 in Construction Related Equipment (CRE) Grants.

School Superintendent Patrick Atwater said that he has been hearing discussions about removing the CTAE program from the control of the local school systems and placing them under the auspices of the Technical College System of Georgia.

This was a hot political topic last year, according to Atwater, but it did not end up going through.

He said that he and Matthews would be attending a meeting in the near future to hear what is being said about the topic.

“We were very pleased with the outcome last year,” Atwater said. “We believe it’s going to come up again. I don’t know who’s pushing it this year, that’s why we’re going to the meeting.”

Chief Academic Officer Mickey Weldon presented a timeline for the school system to prepare for system-wide accreditation by AdvancED Performance Accreditation, which he said will be March 3-6, 2019.

“Basically we’ll be pulling all of our data, what we do as a system, and showing evidence that our schools are in the improvement process,” he said. “I have no concerns over accreditation. I know we’re doing things right, but it’s always good to have an unbiased set of eyes to give us some suggestions on how we might improve.”

Atwater informed the board that the school system is still accredited by AdvancED as well as the Georgia Accrediting Association.

“Colleges and universities outside of Georgia will not accept credits of students who do not graduate from an accredited agency, such as AdvancED,” Atwater said. “AdvancED is a much more thorough, useful accrediting than the Georgia Accrediting Association.”

The last time schools were accredited was seven years ago.

Dr. Michael Slaven, director of federal programs, recognized Shana Garner, who was one of 30parents in the state appointed to the 2019 State School Superintendent’s Parent Advisory Council.

Garner, who is a former Tift County teacher, has three children who are in or recently graduated from the Tift County school system and has also served on a Local School Governance Team.

The board approved seven fundraiser requests, 13 trip requests and eight surplus requests.