GREENEVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) – The Greeneville City Council has decided to purchase land next to the Greene County Fairgrounds. The decision as to what will occupy the land has not been determined but one potential plan is to build a new middle school.
“We are in the phase of just looking at our growth trends, our growth patterns in the last couple of years, realizing we’re in a high trajectory growth time,” City Manager Todd Smith said. “We may need to start talking about the addition of a school building at some point in our school system.”
Smith told News Channel 11 that the city has hired a third-party consultant to collect data on the increase in population.
“The consultant will come in, look at our school system, look at our numbers, look at the way we operate our school facilities individually and as a whole,” Smith said.
Smith said the results from the data collected will determine what the city decides to use the land for. Steve Starnes, Greeneville City Schools superintendent, said the student population has also increased and it can be a struggle to find extra space.
“We are at pretty good capacity in all of our elementary schools,” said Starnes. “It looks for us to be about 2,900 students this year, we’ve been in the 2,700s as recent as five years ago. So looking at about 150, 200 students over the last few years.”
The City Council met Tuesday to discuss the next steps in the process.
