The Bulloch County Board of Education received a presentation Thursday about the latest plans for a new Southeast Bulloch High School, along with an update on the projected building costs and possible ways to fund the project.
Craig Buckley, president and principal architect of James W. Buckley and Associates, which specializes in new school construction, said a 2,500-student Southeast Bulloch, expandable to 3,000 students, is now designed as a two-story, 422,000-square-foot structure.
During an October 2023 BOE meeting, the estimated price of construction alone for a then-proposed 450,000-square-foot school was projected at $112.5 million. Superintendent Charles Wilson told BOE members Thursday the projected cost for the currently proposed 422,000-square-foot school would be $135 million – $319 per square foot.
In addition to classroom, office and common-area space, the new school would have a 6,000-seat arena-style gym, a 200-300-seat auxiliary gym, a 1,200-seat auditorium with stage and a 200-300-seat lecture hall that also could serve as a black box-style theater.
As reported previously, the new campus would be located on land immediately south of Southeast Bulloch Middle School on Brooklet-Denmark Road. Once the new SEB is open, the current Southeast Bulloch High complex would become the new home of Southeast Bulloch Middle, while the current middle school building would become a new “Southeast Bulloch Upper Elementary School” for fourth- and fifth-graders.
That plan would leave the Brooklet, Nevils and Stilson elementary schools with just prekindergarten through third grade, freeing up space for more students. But with the projected population growth in Bulloch over the next five to 10 years, school officials believe two more elementary schools would need to be built.
A date to begin construction of the new SEB won’t be set until the Board of Education approves a final plan. School officials estimate the 2027-28 school year as the earliest the new school might open, though the following school year is more likely.
At Thursday’s meeting, Wilson outlined a number of scenarios to pay for the $135-million school.
All the scenarios included the collection of the current five-year run of the 1% E-SPLOST, which was capped at $110 million in the referendum proposal. But school system officials are counting only on the $80 million borrowing authorized to be paid back with the local tax, plus a projected $15 million in state funding for school construction the county system has earned.
While it’s possible E-SPLOST collections could be higher than $80 million, Wilson said the district can’t plan on that.
Wilson said the district may request Bulloch County’s state legislative delegation seek an increase in the funding formula the state uses each year in allocating funds to each school district.
That funding formula is based on the previous 10 years. But Wilson said since unprecedented growth is being forecast for Bulloch County, which will exceed what the school district’s infrastructure can handle, they may ask the delegation to petition the state for an exception to the 10-year formula basis and receive more state funding.
A millage rate increase also could be considered, but Wilson said he didn’t think the Board wanted to go down that road.
Water and sewer
The city of Brooklet currently provides water and sewer services to Brooklet Elementary and Southeast Bulloch middle and high schools. In order to provide sewer services to the much larger school campus, the city would need to expand its wastewater capacity. Presently, the city is studying adding on to its own system and also talking with the city of Statesboro to purchase some of its capacity.
If Brooklet is unable to provide the necessary sewer services, parts of planned athletic fields at the new SEB would be used instead to create drainage fields as part of a wastewater treatment system.
