Construction on the long-delayed Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District’s Partnership School has stopped due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, Superintendent Eddie Peasant said Friday at a special-call meeting of the board of trustees.
The campus for grades 6-7 — which will be located at Mississippi State University — was originally scheduled to open in August 2018 before rain delays pushed it to November 2018, August 2019 and finally August 2020. Peasant told The Dispatch he does not know how many days of construction still are needed to complete the school, and because no one knows how long the pandemic will last, it is unclear whether the Partnership School will open in August as planned or face another delay.
The 123,000 square-foot building is funded by a local $16 million bond, a $10 million allocation from the Mississippi Legislature and cash and land donations by MSU. Columbus-based West Brothers Construction accepted a nearly $30 million bid for the project in December 2017.
“The number one priority for them is to get this building complete, so they’re working very closely with us,” Peasant said.
Armstrong Middle School currently houses grades 6-8. The Partnership School will make AMS the building for grades 8-9 and Starkville High School for grades 10-12.
Additionally, the district is reducing its meal distribution program from five days a week to Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The increasing number of coronavirus cases in both Oktibbeha County and Mississippi makes it necessary to reduce possible exposure for both students and district employees, Peasant said.
The district aims “to continue to deliver as many meals as we have and as we can,” he said. The average has been about 2,200 lunches per day and the same amount of breakfasts for the next day.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture only allows districts to distribute two meals at a time, so SOCSD cannot deliver two days’ worth of breakfasts and lunches to make up for cutting back on delivery days, district public information officer Nicole Thomas said during the meeting.
Tess Vrbin was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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