MOULTRIE – Since the consolidation of the county’s high schools and junior highs in 1978, ninth grade has moved on and off the Colquitt County High School campus three times. On Monday, ninth graders once again joined the high school. CCHS has expanded its footprint with a new wing to accommodate them.

The wing has 16 classrooms, a student restroom, a teacher work room and an administrative office for a vice principal. Building the addition was part of a five-year facilities plan.

The Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funded the new wing along with other capital projects. Voters approved ESPLOST in March of 2020, and it expires in 2028.

Also part of that plan was to demolish multiple buildings at C.A. Gray Junior High School, a project that couldn’t start until the ninth grade moved to its new location.

Most of the affected buildings were built in 1959 and others in 1982, then-Superintendent Ben Wiggins said during the ESPLOST campaign. Removing the buildings will decrease the school’s capacity from 1,400 to 700, Wiggins said. This should help with traffic congestion in the neighborhood during drop-off and pickup times, he added.

The district’s chief communication officer, Angela Hobby, said by email in January of 2023 that, starting in the fall of the 2021-22 school year, the Board of Education worked with Altman + Barrett Architects to look at options for addressing both the age of the school buildings and the size in relation to enrollment.

“A complete facilities review was conducted,” she said. “The architectural engineers and the BOE members evaluated building ages, infrastructure needs, enrollment growth or decline, and other facility maintenance and use issues.”

There were several community meetings, online feedback opportunities for the presentations, and several presentations at BOE meetings throughout the year.

After about a year of evaluating options, Hobby said, the board decided to remove the oldest buildings at the junior high. At that same time, they decided to move the ninth graders to the high school, she said.

Thursday was open house for CCHS and the first time most students and parents toured the new wing. It connects seamlessly to the high school building through a hallway.

Superintendent Dan Chappuis said approximately 700 ninth graders are entering the high school this year. The ninth grade students’ classes are in the new wing with the exceptions of electives, he said. These classes are all located on the first floor of the building, outside the ninth grade wing, he said.