JMCSS will present 10-year capital plan at next County Commission meeting

JACKSON, Tenn. — The Jackson-Madison County School Board is preparing to meet with the Madison County Commission about the school system’s proposed 10-year capital plan.

“How much will you spend to educate a child, and how far will you go to see it happens?” Madison County Commission Chairman Gary Deaton said.

Superintendent Dr. Eric Jones will present the school board’s proposed $148 million 10-year capital plan in the commission’s meeting Tuesday morning.

“Dr. Jones has put together a lot of good, solid information. He has a vision for what I believe the school system needs as much as anything,” Deaton said.

Earlier this month, the school board unanimously approved the plan to rezone students in some areas. The plan has not been presented to or approved by the Madison County Commission.

“This plan looks at the buildings that we currently have that we are utilizing and trying to decide what makes the best sense moving forward,” Jones said.

Due to overcrowding throughout the Jackson-Madison County School System, three alternate plans have been made to create more space in the district.

These plans include a new middle school or kindergarten through eighth grade school in east Jackson, creating a new kindergarten through eighth grade school in the northwest part of the county, or changing North Parkway Middle School into a kindergarten through eighth grade school.

Restructuring North Parkway Middle would allow those students to go directly into North Side High School as ninth grade students.

Superintendent Dr. Eric Jones will present the 10-year capital plan Tuesday before the Madison County Commission.

It would also move Madison Academic over to the University of Memphis-Lambuth campus.

Jones said these plans would also address the need for renovations in many schools in the district.

“Instead of just putting that $148 million into old schools, can we possibly look at using that same amount of money or even less and rightsize some of our schools that have also moved forward into the 21st century?” Dr. Jones said.

Jones said the decision to close several schools throughout JMCSS under Vision 2020 were made before he became the superintendent.

Deaton hopes this new plan will move past Vision 2020, as he doesn’t see any advantages with the program right now. He said he knows how tough of a decision this was for the school board.

“They thought they were doing the right thing. Did we do the right thing? I don’t know. You’ll have a lot of people tell you, why did we close this school, why did we close that school? That was the decision the school board made, and this is where we are today and we gotta move forward. We can’t move back,” Deaton said.

“I don’t want people to think that this is replacing Vision 2020. It’s more of the next step in a 10-year plan to move our school system forward,” Dr. Jones said.