By Alyssa Schnugg
News editor
alyssa.schnugg@hottytoddy.com
If an agreement on the management if the School of Applied Technology isn’t reached by Friday, the Tech could be in danger of closing and being sold.
On Friday, during a special-called meeting, the Oxford School District Board of Trustees voted to re-approve its version of an agreement to co-manage the Tech with the Lafayette County School Board; however, adding verbiage that if the LCSD does not sign the agreement by the end of day on Friday, authorization is given to Superintendent Brian Harvey to send a letter to the Mississippi Department of Education Office of Career and Technical Education requesting the dissolution of the Oxford and Lafayette County consortium with the programs being allocated to each district based on student population.
The board also authorized School Board Attorney Paul Watkins to begin the partitioning and process to have the facility sold and the assets divided.
In June 2019, the OSD notified the LCSD of its intent to withdraw from the consortium that allows the districts to receive reimbursements from the state for teacher salaries. The OSD wants its own Career Technology Education program so it can receive funding from the state for its program.
The agreement would dissolve the SAT board with each school district being in charge of its own programs.
However, the OSD Board said it wanted to continue sharing the jointly-owned SAT with Lafayette County and allowing students from each school district to enroll in classes from both school districts.
The agreement to make that happen, however, has not yet been reached.
In the OSD approved version, each district would be given full and exclusive use of two of the four shop areas. Lafayette would be allocated two of the three classroom spaces, and Oxford would have the one remaining classroom space.
All other areas within the facility, including but not limited to the office area, outdoor spaces, restrooms, and storage facilities, shall be considered common space available to both parties.
However, the Lafayette County School Board changed the agreement to allocate Lafayette use of three shop areas and one classroom, leaving one shop area and two classrooms for Oxford.
During the January meeting, the OSD Board of Trustees said that arrangement would give Lafayette County 23,000-square feet of shop space while Oxford would receive just 8,500-square feet of space.
The agreement Oxford sent back to Lafayette has the space divided with Lafayette having 17,000-square feet of space and Oxford having 16,800-square feet.
The LCSD board tabled the discussion on the agreement last week.
Harvey said on Friday that time is running out for students to select classes for the 2020-2021 school year.
School Board Member Gray Edmundson questioned why it mattered who had what space since students could take classes from either district.
Harvey said the main issue is that the two school districts are on different bell schedules and it’s been difficult for Oxford students to take classes at The Tech in the past because of the conflicting schedules.
Harvey said the sale of the property would help the OSD fund building shop space to hold its own Career Tech Education classes.
Watkins said either school district would offer to lease or purchase the building from the other, rather than selling the property to an outside buyer.
“There’s nothing that prevents that from occurring,” Watkins said.
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