Clarksdale Collegiate Public Charter School officially approved the purchase of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church on West Second Street during Tuesday night’s board meeting.
The school has been in operation for two years and using St. Paul’s United Methodist Church for its first two years of existence. The church merged with First United Methodist Church and is using that facility. The church is now called Clarksdale United Methodist Church.
That freed up the school to purchase St. Paul’s United Methodist Church’s old facility.
Clarksdale Collegiate Public Charter School executive director Amanda Johnson said the amount of money the facility was purchased for would be disclosed at the closing of the sale. That is expected to take place in September.
Board member and facilities committee chair Chuck Rutledge has been working with the church to make the purchase.
“On the purchase sale, we have been back and forth with the church awhile,” he said.
Lindsay Richards and David Endom of Level Field Partners out of Washington DC, which the school’s consulting firm for the facility, spoke about funding for Phase 1 of another building on the property.
Richards estimated the new building and purchasing the property should cost a combined $7.1 million to $7.8 million. The new building would be 20,000 square feet of construction and the project is expected to be bid out in July. She said once the project begins, things could take 10 to 11 months.
The school is seeking loans to finance the new building and purchase the church.
“Obviously, we’ve got a few different options, but our goal would be to get the biggest loan possible,” Johnson said.
The Walton Foundation, Civic Builders and Hope Enterprises are some of the places the school is looking into getting loans from.
Johnson said fundraisers and donations would also help fund some of the projects.
“We anticipate having to spend a certain amount from our operating funds,” said Johnson, adding no more than 12 percent of operating funds would likely be used for facilities.
Johnson said LISC from New York also provided the school with a $23,000 grant to support the facility projects.
“I feel good about the facility,” Johnson said. “I feel we are making tremendous progress.”
Endom said one obstacle the school is facing it is just in its second year, which makes more difficult to secure loans.
“That’s hard to get this early on,” he said.
Endom did say, in the next three to five years, as new buildings are constructed on the property, the school could consider applying for loans from organizations such as the USDA.
In other business:
•The board approved the calendar for the 2020-21 school year.
Johnson explained to the board how she would handle things differently next year with many unanswered questions about the coronavirus. Her plans were implemented into the calendar.
School will start a week earlier on July 20 to make up for the time lost since distance learning began in March.
“We recognize we have lost a lot of ground,” Johnson said.
• Johnson said the school would provide chromebooks to all students and hot spots to those in need.
• She said hiring was paused on additional instructional aid, but she expects to make some of those hires closer to when in-person instruction starts again.
Since testing was cancelled at the end of the 2019-20 school year, Johnson said NWEA MAP testing will take place at the beginning of next year to measure the students’ progress.
• Johnson said there are three options for school structure next year.
One is to have all virtual learning.
Two is the hybrid model where there is mostly online learning, but some in-person instruction with no more than 10 individuals in a classroom at the same time. Johnson said the hybrid model will most likely be used.
The third option is in-person learning with some online programs.
“I will have more details as we are planning,” Johnson said.
