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dent Wade Johnson in an interview this week. “It hit a high of around 1,900 in 1977 or 1978 and then it declined to approximately 1,600, where it is today. The decline has stabilized in the last three or four years and we see a slight upturn now in kindergarten, first and second grades.”
That stabilization hadn’t yet happened, however, when the supervisors upped the tax rate in 1984 by 40 percent, going from 50 cents to 70 cents per $100 of assessed value, to prepare for the school building program. “It was the biggest tax increase in the history of Clarke County and porbably the biggest single jump we’ll ever take,” said county administrator Bob Lee. “And there were few complaints. The people seem to think that education is the most important thing we do.”
That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a fight over the building program for the schools. “We had quite a battle here. It took grief and pain to get where we are now,” acknowledged the superintendent.
Everyone agreed that the antiquated middle school should be abandoned. A high school for black children in the days of segregation, its oldest portion dates from 1900, Mr. Johnson noted. “It’s completely obsolete. It was inadequate then (as a segregated school) and it’s grown more inadequate every year we’ve used it ... It was the minimum type of construction when it was built!”
But there was no agreement as to what should happen after the old middle school was closed.
Build a new intermediate school? Add on to the existing high school? Turn the existing high school into an intermediate school and build a new high school?
According to Superintendent Johnson, the old high school was inadequate, but only as a high school, not as an intermediate school. As a high school with an enrollment of 550 in grades nine through 12, its library and cafeteria were too small. Built in 1954, the gym with limited seating on one side did not provide the space necessary for high
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