New Claxton elementary to replace near century-old campus

CLAXTON, Tenn. (WATE) — The current Claxton Elementary School is nearly a century old and has seen its fair share of renovations. Those in the Claxton community are looking forward to seeing a new school built for their kids.

“This school really and truly has [gone] through almost four renovations,” Anderson County Director of Schools Dr. Tim Parrott said. “Every time they would kind of add a different building to it. At this campus you really have five different buildings and even the gym is separate. You can only do so much to an old building.”

A community meeting was held Thursday night inside the gym at the current elementary school to go over the plans for the new building that is set to be built across the street. A parent of a former Claxton Elementary School student said it will be nice to have a new school for the community.

“I’m part of the community, I’ve had a child go through it, lets do this thing right,” Quinn Bender said. “I think they’re on the right track from the drawings that I’ve seen. It’s great for Claxton because Claxton doesn’t get a lot of stuff. We’re not a big community so it’ll be nice to get something new here.”

While most people say the new school is needed, one parent whose kids currently attend Claxton doesn’t want to see the existing building go away.

“I went to this school when I was their age, so did my sister,” Brandon Davis said. “It’s been around for a while. I hate to see it go, but at least they’ll be getting a new one.”

When planning this new school, a major component of the design was safety.

“When you’re thinking about a building where students are going in and out of all day long and you have to call a kid to the office and sometimes they have to go by themselves,” Parrott said. “This new building that we are building it will all be under one roof and it will be a lot easier to contain and be a lot easier to make sure that everybody is safe.”

One of the biggest safety features they talked about was described as a bomb shelter for severe weather. Dr. Tim Parrott said the area near the STEM labs will be built with 12-inch thick cinderblock and reinforced with concrete and rebar. This will serve as the safe place for students and teachers during severe weather.

The new school is slated to be built just down the road and will use Raccoon Valley Road as its main access point.

We are told the total cost of the project will be in the neighborhood of $28 million and taxes will not be increased for this build. They are expecting to break ground in January of 2025.

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