The Cullman County Board of Education said replacing Hanceville Elementary’s Edmonson Hall will be the top priority as it laid out its capital improvement plan for the next five years.

The CCBOE has completed nearly $73 million in capital improvement projects since 2020. Thursday, Aug. 15, it discussed its plans to spend an additional $22,993,000 during the course of the next five years.

Superintendent Shane Barnette included three additional projects not included in the report which he categorized as the district’s most immediate needs.

Barnette said the replacement of Edmonson Hall, which was built in 1949 making it one of the district’s oldest facilities still in use, was at the top of his priority list after teachers returning to campus to resume classes ahead of the new school year discovered mold inside their classrooms.

Barnette said the mold was the result of a faulty air conditioning unit which failed during the summer break. Mobile classroom units were immediately put into place and no classes have taken place inside Edmonson Hall since school has been in session.

The draft proposal Barnette presented for the replacement facility was shown to include six regular sized classrooms and two additional smaller auxiliary classrooms which Barnette said should be able to house between eight and 10 students. He said the drawing would also allow for an outdoor courtyard space surrounding the new building with the addition of fencing.

A similar draft proposal was shown to replace current mobile classrooms in use at the Child Development Center.

The final, and most costly, immediate project Barnette suggested was the construction of a new Good Hope Elementary School facility.

Barnette said Good Hope is already the fastest growing feeder pattern in the district. With the construction of roughly 300 new homes recently announced in the area, he said delaying the project would likely create issues with housing students.

“We might could hop along at Good Hope a little longer, but we’re going to get ourselves in a pickle if we don’t do something. In two years Good Hope High School won’t have anywhere to put anybody,” Barnette said. “If we wait a couple of years to build at Good Hope we’re going to have to move portables in there I feel.”

Barnette said constructing a new elementary school would free up much needed space at the high school and proposed using the current elementary building as what he described as a “ninth grade academy.”

The proposed elementary school would be constructed adjacent to Good Hope Primary School and would include a shared gym and playground area, 19 full-size classrooms and a library.

The cost for each project was estimated to be:

— $2.7 million to replace Edmonson Hall.

— $2 million to construct a new facility at the CDC.

— $9 million to construct a new Good Hope Elementary facility.

A new, $2 million, combined home economics/agri-science facility was also proposed at Cold Springs High School, but Barnette said the project likely wouldn’t be included in the district’s budget until 2026.

Barnette said the proposals should not require the board to borrow any additional funds.

“We’ve been blessed over the last few years and have made sure that things fit the criteria for certain funds and then used those funds for different parts of the projects,” Barnette said. “That’s worked well for us and I think over the next two or three years we can do that again without taking out any more bonds and be able to complete these projects.