MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Monongalia County Schools will have to adjust plans to eliminate portable classrooms at one school after the School Building Authority’s allocation of funding this year.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Frank Devono said the district was hoping for $3.2 million dollars to finance a 12-classroom addition to South Middle School. He learned Monday the SBA approved $2 million of the request.
“We were asking for 12 classrooms including restrooms and science labs for South Middle School so we can get kids out of those modules,” Devono explained.
Devono said the age of the current detached classrooms poses some issues and the district would prefer not to have students outside between classes to go to lunch or gym.
“We might not be able to do 12 classrooms now. We may be able to do eight or nine, whatever we can do with the amount of money we have allocated now.’
The SBA had $50 million dollars available to split among requests from 18 counties for 2016 projects.
“They had close to $90 million worth of requests. My concern was that other projects may be of a higher need and that we would not be able to get any of the dollars that we felt we needed for our project,” Devono added.
The superintendent said the district always hopes for full support of the financial request, but this year given the circumstances other counties face, there was great competition for the funding.
“I’m really happy to be able to get a part of it knowing that Fayette County, Mercer County and Raleigh County were asking for big ticket items well over $7-8 million. I was just hopeful there would be enough money for Monongalia County Schools to get a little bit.”