TIFTON — Community members and concerned parents voiced their grievances over a few projects proposed by Tift County Schools during the most recent Board of Education meeting.

Amid discussions of new construction developments and schedule reformatting, a few residents of the school district urged an alternative course of action at the May 6 board meeting.

Jeffery McClendon, a member of the CTAE Ag Advisory Committee, expressed reservations over the current plans for the school’s new facilities, including the multipurpose building and the school system’s new middle school currently being developed.

Speaking on behalf of several concerned parents in the community, McClendon was concerned that the new facilities may have a negative impact on the quality of future education, and felt the school system required a greater supply of full-time agriculture teachers to better support its students.

He criticized the plans for the new middle school to have only two agricultural education classes and a single lab in contrast to Northeast Middle School sporting three classrooms and two labs, asserting that the reduced facilities were certain to be insufficient for the school’s student body.

McClendon expressed particular concern for the multipurpose building, arguing that it was taking away funds from building a properly sized school to educate students and placed unnecessary importance on athletics over education. He noted that the school system had over 2,000 students in CTAE programs, many of whom consistently excelled at state and national levels, but only around 350 in athletics, and urged the board members to reconsider.

Jasmine Webster had her own frustrations with the school system’s proposed school hour extensions, which would add anywhere from 25 to 40 minutes to the school day for every level of education within the county.

A mother of four with every child at some level of education within Tift County Schools, Webster argued that the longer school hours would in fact prove to be a detriment, as she feared the extended time would take a toll on both students and teachers, to the extent that teachers may choose to resign, and that some students might even be unable to handle the longer times, especially in the younger grades.

She provided the board with a survey conducted with over a thousand county residents in which the top responses expressed concerns over teacher and student fatigue, a reduction in personal, free, and familial time, and a potential increase in student behavioral issues.

Webster asked the board members to consider a decrease between the start times of the middle and elementary schools and a greater support for their teaching staff, including through the reduction of class sizes.