BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
STARKE — The Bradford School District’s newly adopted project priority list includes plans for two older schools and one yet-to-be funded new school.
The priority list was approved by the school board last week.
It includes plans to move the district offices to the Southside Elementary School campus after it has been vacated this fall.
Some of the buildings at Southside will still be coming down, and moving the district’s technology infrastructure and generator to the Southside campus are listed as a separate project altogether.
Once the district offices — the former Starke Elementary School — are empty, they will also be razed to make way for additional parking.
Operations and Safety Director Jeff Edison has stressed the importance of eliminating old spaces that students could still occupy in order to achieve funding new, updated facilities. Bradford Elementary School, set to open in the fall is the district’s first new school in 20 years.
The district doesn’t want to wait another 20 years, which is why the next major project will replace both the middle and high school as well as North Florida Technical College. An actual vision for this hasn’t been shared yet, and the district still has two older schools to deal with. Brooker Community School, a planned charter school, plans to use former school campus there, but there’s no word about what will become of the campus in Hampton.
Other projects that did make the priority list include a new track shack at the high school, replacing the gutters at Starke Elementary School, and repaving the parking lots there and at the transportation department.
