Aiken County school administrators are asking the Board of Education to authorize architectural design work on an Area Five proposal that would bring two middle-school populations to the Silver Bluff campus and move Greendale Elementary students into a converted New Ellenton facility.
The request is listed for individual consideration at the board’s 6 p.m. Nov. 10 meeting at the district office, 1000 Brookhaven Drive, Aiken. The posted agenda says the meeting will be livestreamed through the district website.
The immediate recommendation is narrower than completing the school changes. The administration’s agenda attachment asks for consent to have architects prepare schematic designs for the Silver Bluff Middle/High School addition and the New Ellenton Elementary addition and renovations.
Under the August conceptual master plan, students from Jackson and New Ellenton middle schools would move to a new middle-school addition at Silver Bluff in July 2029. Greendale Elementary students would move into the remodeled New Ellenton building in January 2030. Those are planning targets, not dates of changes already carried out.
The concept shows a 75,000-square-foot middle-school addition, including classroom space and space for a gym, cafeteria and arts. It projects the addition at 80% of capacity in July 2029 and the repurposed elementary school at 75% in January 2030. The presentation labels those figures as estimates.
The board first received the concept in August and authorized public outreach. Meetings followed in New Ellenton and Jackson, along with an online survey. The Oct. 27 meeting minutes included in the current packet record the community-input summary as an informational item, rather than approval of the construction proposal.
The survey presentation reports 108 responses. On the overall plan, 59 respondents were strongly supportive and 11 somewhat supportive; 26 were strongly opposed and four somewhat opposed. Four were neutral and four wanted more information or were unsure. Those results describe people who answered the district’s survey, not a representative poll of every affected household.
Separate survey questions addressed the middle-school combination and the elementary-school conversion. Both received more supportive than opposing responses, but neither result resolves practical questions about implementation.
For families, the next questions concern transportation, attendance assignments, how the middle- and high-school spaces would operate, and what would happen to buildings left behind. The design request is a step toward making the proposal more concrete. Those details will matter as much to the affected households as the square footage on the plans.