Mark your calendar for Jan. 30 if you care about education in Colquitt County.

The county Board of Education will meet at 5:30 p.m. that day, and part of the agenda is a public hearing about the future of C.A. Gray Junior High School, but it’s even more than that.

A year ago, Altman + Barrett Architects looked at C.A. Gray and realized it isn’t big enough, and there is no realistic way to make it any bigger because its campus is surrounded by other buildings. They proposed building a new school across the road from Colquitt County High School, moving the junior high students there and closing the current C.A. Gray on Northside Drive. Perhaps it could become a community center or house charities, they speculated.

When the school system presented the plan at a pair of public hearings, response was strongly negative. Northwest Moultrie residents didn’t want to lose their school. Supporters of the high school agriculture program pointed out they’d been promised a new ag building in the previous Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax some years ago, and that ag building was planned for the same site where the architects now wanted to put the junior high.

When the school system learned that building a new school did not qualify for state funding, the proposal was pretty much dead.

But that didn’t change the initial problem: C.A. Gray, which houses virtually all eighth and ninth grade students in the county, needs to grow and can’t.

The architects returned last month with a new proposal. C.A. Gray’s campus includes several buildings, some of which are 60 years old but others are less than 20. The architects suggested the school board tear down the old buildings, which would provide more room for future growth. But to bring the school’s population in line with its facilities, half the students would have to go somewhere else.

Colquitt County School District is unusual among Georgia’s districts in the way it splits up its grades. Pre-kindergarten and kindergarten through fifth grade are in elementary schools, sixth and seventh grades are at Willie J. Williams Middle School, eighth and ninth grades are at C.A. Gray, and 10th through 12th grades are at CCHS. Most high schools in the state house grades 9-12.

The architects propose building another wing at the high school and moving the ninth graders from C.A. Gray there. With only eighth graders, C.A. Gray’s population would match the space available after the oldest buildings are removed.

How much of this will be funded, or at least reimbursed, by the state? Probably a lot, but not all. Any such calculations now are just educated guesses.

When could this happen? It’ll take a while. Some of the funds for the work will come from a new ESPLOST that will go before voters this spring. Failure of the ESPLOST would be a big problem for the project, but even if it succeeds money won’t start coming in until the fourth quarter of this year. Once money is available, there will be preliminary work before construction can start. The ninth grade wing has to be finished before students can move there, and they have to move there before C.A. Gray’s older buildings can be demolished.

Is this the best plan for Colquitt County’s students?

If you said, “No,” then what do you suggest? The school system would really like to know what you think. Join them for the public hearing at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 30 at the former Colquitt County High School on Park Avenue.

C.A. Gray’s 60-year-old school buildings aren’t getting any younger.