Funding is in the final stages of approval for the addition of eight classrooms at DeKalb West School.
Director of Schools Mark Willoughby announced at Thursday night’s school board meeting that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant the school system recently applied for to build eight tornado-proof safe rooms at the school has been allocated, and the system is waiting only for final approval of the exchange.
The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) has approved funds of slightly more than $1.5 million to build the addition to the facility, and the grant is now awaiting final approval by FEMA.
Willoughby told the assembly that he received a letter last week from David Brown of Kaatz, Binkley, Jones & Morris Architects of Mount Juliet informing him that TEMA had approved the funds.
“The application has been approved for more than $1.5 million dollars,” Willoughby shared. “They are working on review comments from TEMA and will send the revised application to them Friday.
“The approval letter from TEMA should come right after we submit the application,” Willoughby continued. “The application then goes to FEMA in Atlanta for final approval.”
He said that once FEMA has approved the grant construction should begin in a matter of months.
“It will take several months for the money to become available,” he said. “After final approval, one of the next steps is that we're going to have a contract to hire Kaatz-Binkley, who has done this work, and Lashlee-Rich. Once we get the hard numbers we will have to vote to do this.”
Willoughby also said that the renovation of the cafeteria and kitchen at the school should likely be included in the project and paid for with local funds.
“We need to see if we can include the kitchen and cafeteria at the West School,” the director informed the board. “We're going to need to do that sooner or later, but doing it at this time would be much cheaper than leaving it and then coming back (to do the work later). You'd have all the equipment there and could do everything at one time a lot cheaper than you could rebid and everything,"  Willoughby said.
The grant will pay for more than $1.5 million of the 15,000-square-foot addition to the school, and the estimated $600,000 remainder will be paid for with local funds.
Plans call for the addition to be built in front of the existing structure, creating an entire new face for the building.
FEMA has made $23 million available to applicants who meet eligibility standards set forth under the agency’s Hazard Mitigation Grant program.
The federal government pays 75 percent of the cost under the program, the state pays 12.5 percent and  12.5 percent will be paid out of local funds.
The school, which was completed in 1974, was originally designed to serve 320 students.
The facility currently has an enrollment of nearly 450, not counting staff and  faculty.
A portable unit containing two classrooms is now being used to help relieve overcrowded conditions.
Although the addition would provide eight much-needed classrooms to the school, the primary purpose of the grant is to provide safe shelter for members of the community.
The eight rooms should accommodate up to 1,000 people in the event of an emergency.
The project will be designed to  withstand  250 mph winds along with the debris such a storm would carry.