Whitfield County Schools' new district office close to completion

Mar. 22—Whitfield County Schools Superintendent Mike Ewton said final renovations to the school system's new district office at 3264 Cleveland Highway are "essentially done," barring a few adjustments.

"There's one electrical component, a big electrical component, that has been back ordered and it's supposed to be installed in April, so we're looking to move in fully in May and in June."

Inside the old North Whitfield Middle School building, the new district office will share the space with students in the North Star program, which serves students from Whitfield County Schools as well as some Murray County Schools and Dalton Public Schools students who may need more access to therapy while in a classroom setting.

"Most of the students there at North Star are in Whitfield County Schools," Ewton said. "It's still a partnership with all three school systems, we just happen to host the facility."

Ewton said a major deciding factor in the move from the school system's current central office at 1306 S. Thornton Ave. is the amount of space the new location provides.

"Essentially, everybody that works here in the central office building will move up there," Ewton said. "As well as all of the folks at our Student Services Center on Tyler Street."

Ewton said there are around 40 staff members at the central office and close to 45 at the Student Services Center at 201 E. Tyler St.

"Added operations, the school nutrition group and technology will all move up there as well," Ewton said. "The idea is to get people all under one roof because right now we have people running back and forth just between administrative buildings. With that, you're paying for mileage and all those sorts of things."

Another major factor, Ewton said, involved the state of the current offices, saying both the central office building and Student Services Center need "a lot of work."

"There's no sprinkler system, and the electrical is not up to current code," he said. "A lot of renovation needs to be done. So, instead of doing all of these renovations we made the decision to renovate an older middle school, salvage it and repurpose it."

Ewton said the new district office will be a better representation of the school system as many parents enrolling their children have their "first impression."

"Student Services is where our enrollment center is and it's an old building," he said. "It's just not the best representation when somebody moves into the area and they're going to enroll their kids. The new building will have a nice, open area and will be, I think, more representative of what we stand for and what our buildings are really like. I just hate for the first impression to be the worst building we've ever had."

Having all administrative staff members "under one roof" in a newer, nicer setting "will be a big benefit," Ewton said.

As for what will happen with the buildings on Thornton Avenue and Tyler Street, Ewton said school system officials have some ideas.

"The central office, we'll probably put on the market," he said. "For the (Student Services) building, we're going to keep it because of the warehouse space. We're just not going to use the office space. So, we'll go from having about 45 people there down to about four."

Ewton said those four staff members will most likely be "a technology person that brings the computers and works on those as they're being shipped in, and then the warehouse staff."

Due to the impending transition, the Whitfield County Board of Education members voted 5-0 to approve several amendments to the meeting schedule at their most recent meeting on Monday.

"The first change is to move the May 6 board meeting to Valley Point Middle School," Ewton said. "It was scheduled to be here (at the central office), but May is a large meeting time with lots of recognitions and we like lots of students and families here. So we'll be in the multipurpose room at Valley Point Middle."

After approval of the updated meeting calendar, all board meetings listed as taking place inside the old central office building after the month of June were changed to take place at the new district office on Cleveland Highway.

The school board's Nov. 4 meeting, which was originally scheduled to be at Valley Point Middle School, was also changed to instead take place inside the new district office building.