Bulloch Academy’s leaders and parent volunteers showcased a $5.6 million building plan Friday that will make room for the independent school on Westside Road to grow from its almost maxed-out, 580-student current enrollment to nearly 900 students.

With a media announcement followed by a pep rally and an on-campus barbecue dinner, Bulloch Academy also launched the public phase hoped to net the final $1.5 million or so of its $5.6 million goal in the Cornerstone Capital Campaign. Mike Anderson, an alumnus and current chairman of the B.A. Board of Trustees, announced that the campaign committee has already secured more than $4 million in donations and pledges.

“That means we’re at 72 percent of our goal,” Anderson said. “The Cornerstone Campaign will increase the number of students we can serve and will change our campus dramatically.

“Specifically, the campaign will fund new academic classrooms so we can serve more families, a second gymnasium so our young athletes have more practice and game opportunities, a multi-use cafetorium so you can comfortably enjoy the school programs, and one safe entry point for the campus,” he said.        

Parents and staff members have been discussing the expansion plan, and praying about it, for several years, Anderson said. After realizing that the buildings no longer met current needs or provided room for growth, the board ordered a professional study that produced a 30-year master plan.

What the current campaign will fund is just the first phase. This alone should increase the school’s enrollment capacity by about 50 percent, Anderson said in an interview Thursday.

“It is our goal to start site preparation in the next few months as we plan to be fully completed with the (first-phase) work and the campaign well before our 50th anniversary in 2021,” he told supporters and reporters Friday.

Second gym

The first thing scheduled to be built is an auxiliary gym. Full funding is already in hand for it and the gym construction would not displace classes, so it may begin this fall, said Anderson and BA Head of School Leisa Houghton. The new gym will not replace the existing gym, which will still be the main venue for varsity competition.

Work on the addition to the academic complex could follow during 2019, but Anderson said he wasn’t ready to predict an exact timeframe because planning is still underway.

New shared spaces

The new building containing a cafeteria with a stage, a new media center and administrative offices will link the existing upper-grades and lower-grades buildings. It will also replace the existing cafeteria, which is in the lower school, and media center, which is in the upper school, and some of the offices.

Under the plans being developed by the architecture firm James W. Buckley & Associates, renovations will then turn those spaces in the existing buildings into more classrooms. Around nine to 11 classrooms will be added in the first phase, Anderson said.

For the past few years, Bulloch Academy has placed some children on waiting lists for admission to its early grades. Normally, the school is able to accommodate most of them over the summer, Houghton said.

“However, with our low student-to-teacher ratio as a top priority, we simply have not had the space or the teachers to accept all of our young applicants,” Houghton told supporters. “The Cornerstone Campaign will change this because your generosity will provide to future generations the same faith-filled education that we have offered at Bulloch Academy for over four decades.

“Because you have said yes, we can say yes,” she concluded.

The waiting list now includes potential kindergarten and prekindergarten students. The academy has enrolled right-at 580 students in pre-K through 12th grade, she said after the media announcement.

City water and sewer

Besides getting new buildings, Bulloch Academy plans to join Statesboro’s city water and sewer systems as part of this expansion. The school is currently served by a private well and a septic system. In May, Statesboro City Council approved spending $100,000 in city money on the extension, with the understanding that Bulloch Academy will pay a larger share of the cost.

The $100,000 limit was based on a projection that the city will recoup $130,000 from the academy’s connection fees and water bills in five years, Statesboro Public Utilities Director Steve Hotchkiss told City Council. The city previously spent $30,000 on engineering for the project, he said in May.

The city mains need to be extended roughly three-fourths of a mile, from the Grove Circle subdivision to the school, and the academy was asked to grant the city an easement for future extension of water and sewer to the bypass.

Bulloch Academy will keep its well for campus irrigation but needs the city’s water pressure for fire protection, Houghton said. Anderson said the B.A. board has bid requests out for the pipeline extension.

Largest campaign

For their work on B.A.’s largest capital campaign yet, Anderson thanked the campaign committee, which includes a marketing committee led by dentist Dr. Marie Wall and physician Dr. Ruthie Crider, both of whom have children enrolled at the school. He also thanked previous Board of Trustees chairman Joey Cowart and the other board members, all of whom are parents of B.A. students.

A “quiet phase” preceded the announcement and involved donations and pledges from major supporters.

“In fact the Cornerstone Campaign is farther along than any of us could have predicted in October of 2017 when we quietly began the naming gifts phase,” Wall said in opening comments.

For the campaign, the academy brought in a Savannah fundraising consultant, Phoenicia Miracle of Miracle Strategies, and also has local support from Davis Marketing. Frank Hook, who has done fundraising work for Georgia Southern University and other local organizations for more than 30 years, now serves part-time on the Bulloch Academy staff as director of capital giving and major gifts. He has a grandchild attending B.A.

Connie Averitt, one of Bulloch Academy’s founders, attended Friday’s announcement. She recalls how the school was put together from scratch in 1971 and opened that fall in a rented building. The present site was purchased the next year.

“It’s quite a huge step. …,” she said of this latest phase.  “We see the need is here and we want to meet the need in the community.”

Herald reporter Al Hackle may be reached at (912) 489-9458.