Arkadelphia school board begins talks of new high school

PHOTO: Clayton Vaden, standing, shows members of the Arkadelphia school board one of four placement options to build a new high school. The option shown places the school in the parking lot where the band practices, with an arena/auditorium between the football stadium and bus shed. The proposed placement is shaded in blue.

By JOEL PHELPS | arkadelphian.com

With two campuses now complete, preliminary talks began Friday morning about the planning of a new Arkadelphia High School.

During its annual retreat at the Iron Mountain Conference Center, the Arkadelphia Board of Education heard ideas from a state official, an architect and a financial representative about the possibilities of constructing 100,000 square feet of high school facilities.

It’s too early yet for architects to draw up any blueprints for the school, as the school district still has to determine cost projections, funding options and precisely where to place the school. For about an hour Oct. 11, 2024, the school board weighed those options.

State’s share

The school board last year opted to rescind nearly $17 million from state-approved funding as school districts across the state grappled with the financial unknowns of the LEARNS Act. 

Dr. Charles Stein, who at the time pitched the funding partnership, hinted Friday that the holdout will likely play to Arkadelphia’s advantage during the next funding cycle sometime in 2025. Stein, director of the Arkansas Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation, projected that next year’s funding cycle could add about $2 million more from the state’s share. A figure should be determined by May, he said.

The school district would be responsible for paying any difference between state funding and the overall cost. The last estimated figure to build a new campus was about $40 million.

Location, location, location

Clayton Vaden of Lewis Architects Engineers — the firm responsible for designing the newly built Peake Elementary School — presented the board with four preliminary options about the new high school’s location. Using a slideshow, Vaden recommended that the new campus be built either directly west of the current facility, or south of Goza Middle School. Students would remain at the current high school until the new campus is completed; the current school — or at least a majority of it — would likely be razed.

Vaden was the architect who designed Peake Elementary School. The Lewis Architects firm has written blueprints for school facilities in Benton, Bryant, Sheridan, Texarkana and other districts throughout the state.

The first two options would put the new school in the vicinity of where the band now practices. The variation was the location of an “arena” or auditorium, with one placing it adjacent to the school and the other putting it between Badger Stadium and the bus shed.

Addressing traffic congestion during drop-off and pick-up times, one option Vaden pitched was adding an access road connecting Arkansas Highway 8 to the west side of the campus. That way, he said, buses could enter from that direction and, after delivering/collecting students from both AHS and Goza, exit the complex at Badger Lane east of Goza.

The other two options — again, the variation being the placement of the auditorium — would put the new school in the vacant lot south of Badger Lane, or south of Goza. Administrators and school board members seemed to disagree with that option, citing concerns that students would have to cross Badger Lane to traverse between AHS and Goza.

If all goes according to plan, construction on the new AHS facility would begin in 2026.

Millage extension in the works

In 2015 voting residents within the school district favored a 5.75-mill increase to fund new facilities and raise teacher salaries. The millage rate in the Arkadelphia Public School District is 44.65 mills.

Since the millage increase, a bond issuance has afforded the school district the ability to build Goza Middle School (completed in 2019) and Peake Elementary School (completed in 2024). With the LEARNS Act raising minimum teacher salaries to $50,000, the district now has some wiggle room to use that portion of the millage pledged for teacher raises, said Jason Holsclaw, senior vice president of public finance at Stephens Inc. 

The district’s bond debt is presently set to be paid off in 2047.

Building a $40 million facility — even after the state’s portion — may require an extension to the current millage rate. Ball-parking the figures, Holsclaw recommended that the district finance approximately between $15-20 million — the remainder of the state’s cost share.

The school board was quick to shoot down the option of asking voters for additional mills to build the high school. Rather, the general consensus was to ask voters to extend the current millage rate an additional 5 years. That election would happen in November 2025. 

In the meantime, school board president Blake Bell said, district officials will be prioritizing the desires, needs and features of the new high school — namely, an agriscience building, auditorium features, and a fine arts center.

They’ll also be gearing up for an election that will determine the fate of the millage rate’s lifespan.

“The average voter is going to see a [ballot] issue,” Bell said. “They’re not going to read the issue, they’re not going to understand the issue, they’re going to assume the worst. They’re going to assume we’re asking them for more money. We’re going to have to do a good job of educating them that we’re not asking for more money, we’re asking for more time.”