Sixth-graders leaving Fisher

Whether the proposed $30 million Athens Independent School District bond passes, sixth-graders who attend R.C. Fisher will be headed to Athens Middle School next year, school administrators said Thursday night.

Though the four-hour meeting was dubbed a “training” session, the proposed bond once again took center stage before the Athens ISD Board of Trustees.

At the end of the meeting, AISD administrators announced their plan for the 2008-2009 school year to send students from Fisher — a sixth-grade-only campus — to AMS, which currently houses seventh and eighth graders.

Pre-kindergarten students from the Athens Annex could attend school at the Fisher campus next year.

The bond issue — part of the district’s Long-Range Facilities Plan — has called for creating three kindergarten through third-grade campuses. If it passes, those campuses would be at Bel Air Elementary, South Athens Elementary and at R.C. Fisher. South Athens would also have all pre-K students, and a new campus would be built at Fisher.

Even if a bond passes, a new wing for sixth-graders at AMS will not likely be finished until Fall 2009. Students will move from Fisher to a 10-classroom portable building on middle school property for the 2008-2009 school year.

Moving sixth-graders and the current Fisher faculty to the portable building will save the district $472,429, Assistant Superintendent Mike Green said. Of that amount, Green said, $385,515 will be saved in salaries. He added that no positions will be cut, but that some positions will no longer be needed. Current Fisher Principal Diana Vaughn will move into administration next year.

The remaining amount will be saved in transportation and utility costs, he said.

If pre-kindergarten students move to Fisher next year, it will clear the way for the construction of labs for Athens High School students at the Annex.

Green said high school students are required by the state to have four years of science, and that the current high school student population exceeds current lab capacity.