Fayette County's schools superintendent may move all Collins Middle School students to portable buildings next school year, including those still at the Oak Hill school and about 400 students who were displaced after part of the school was closed last year.
Terry George said he's considering bids from two companies to rent two large portable buildings with about 14 classrooms apiece, to accommodate the school's roughly 750 students. He said the portables -- which would also contain hallways, restrooms, offices and teacher workspaces -- would be next to Oak Hill High School and the Fayette Institute of Technology.
"We're going to have grades five through eight all at one site in the Oak Hill complex," George said.
The rental would be for no more than three years, at a price around $600,000, George said. He said State Schools Superintendent Michael Martirano would have to sign off on any rental contract.
The state Board of Education took control of Fayette schools from the county school board in 2010, after a state Office of Education Performance Audits report said the local board was "unwilling to deal with the very small high schools and support a plan to combine some and improve severe facility deficiencies, limited curriculum, and poorly achieving schools."
Martirano ordered the closure of Collins Middle's seventh- and eighth-grade building in January 2015 because of structural issues, sending about 400 students to county high schools and fueling the effort to pass Fayette's first school building and renovation bond in more than 40 years. But in June, Fayette voters shot down the bond, which would've funded a new Collins Middle building along with high school consolidations and other building projects.
In December, state School Building Authority also denied Fayette's subsequent funding request -- supported by George, Martirano and most state school board members -- for $39.6 million to consolidate four high schools into a new one, allowing Collins Middle students to move into the current Oak Hill High building.
George said he'd previously considered using only enough portables to bring the seventh- and eighth- graders -- now being taught at Oak Hill High and Fayetteville High -- back to the Collins Middle campus, which is about a mile-and-a-half away from Oak Hill High.
But he said Collins Middle has continued to have problems with utilities following the older students' departure. The school's cafeteria was in the shuttered seventh- and eighth-grade building, he said, so the county had to convert an old shop into a space to serve meals and have band and physical education classes.
"The facility just is inadequate for those purposes at the current Collins site," George said. He said if Collins Middle students move into the portables, they'll use the adjacent gym and cafeteria at Oak Hill High for lunch and physical education.
George said he had no "concrete plans" for the current Collins Middle buildings. He said there will be a "permanent solution" for the Collins Middle students by the end of the possible three-year portables phase, but said he didn't know if that would mean a new building or consolidation with other schools.
Fayette school officials have also requested $1 million from the School Building Authority - which distributes state general revenue, bond proceeds and lottery money for school construction and renovation projects around West Virginia - to add classrooms to Midland Trail High. If approved, that plan would let school officials close Ansted Middle, which George said has temporary heaters in every classroom, temporary electrical service and continuing water and mold issues.
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.