Montgomery County commissioners pass resolution for elementary school land purchase
The land search for the next Clarksville-Montgomery County elementary school is one step closer to being over as the Montgomery County Commissioners approved a resolution that allows the purchase of a selected parcel to begin.
During the formal meeting on Monday, Montgomery County commissioners unanimously voted to approve a resolution that allows CMCSS to move forward with the purchase of land.
Currently, CMCSS has over 20 elementary schools. Region 2, where the new school would be built, has 10 of them. The property selected is located off Fort Campbell Boulevard at the Ironhorse Belleglade mobile home site.
At the September informal meeting held on Sept. 5, the county commissioners heard a resolution that would allow the purchase of property for the next elementary school.
During a presentation to commissioners, Norm Brumblay, Chief Operations Officer of CMCSS, outlined the process of finding the land. He said that with the continuous growth in the county, a new school is needed.
"It's an area that we have a lot of elementary schools because of the age of the folks who live there," said director of the Regional Planning Commission, Jeffrey Tyndall in October of 2022.
But those 10 aren't enough, since all elementary schools are at 100% capacity.
For the 2023- 2024 school year, CMCSS has 39,489 students, with 670 new students annually. Since the search for a new elementary school began, the number of students has increased by 1,800 students.
Process for finding the land
The search began in January 2022. By April, the committee found 19 properties.
In October, the committee had three they preferred and by November, the Ironhorse Bellglade mobile home site was announced as a top pick of the three properties.
At the time, Tyndall believed the price would be more than $100,000 an acre, with around 17 acres looking to be purchased. In June, Tyndall told the Leaf-Chronicle that the Joint Land committee was still searching because of the hefty price, which was more than the $100,000 mentioned last year.
Now that the resolution has passed, CMCSS will conduct a survey to see if the land is a suitable location for an elementary school. If so, the process of negotiating the cost and purchasing the land will happen.
"This property is going to be the most expensive property ever purchased for a school site, but it is also the first in 20 years to be built inside the city area," Tyndall said. "Carmel, Oakland, Sango and Kirkwood properties are all in the county or the edge of the city."
“We have the youngest median population in Tennessee, with that blessing comes the challenge of having enough school facilities to educate our youth," Montgomery County Mayor Wes Golden told the Leaf- Chronicle. "We have one of the highest percentages of K-12 students per capita in Tennessee. To put it in perspective, Nashville Metro has well over three times the population of Clarksville, Montgomery County but they have just a little more than twice the number of students we have."
"The land option is expensive but it is at market value and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find land, especially in the 37042 zip code where we are growing most," he said. "The county is charged with the responsibility of providing schools for our children so we must look seriously at this option.”
Now that the Montgomery County commissioners have approved the budget at their formal meeting, the land would be purchased and construction would start after the opening of Kirkwood Elementary. The opening of the unnamed elementary school would be set for August 2026.
Reporter Kenya Anderson can be reached at kanderson@nashvill.gannett.com or on X at KenyaAnderson32.
This article originally appeared on Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle: Land proposed for new elementary school unanimously passed by commissioners
