Shelby charter school preparing for $15 million expansion

Pinnacle Classical Academy plans to double the footprint of its upper campus over the next year. The public charter school has received a $15 million fixed-interest loan from the United States Department of Agriculture to fund the construction.

Plans for the $15 million include building a new wing on the existing upper school campus on Joes Lake Road, as well as an expansion for the school gymnasium.

The new wing of the school will mirror the existing school, with two floors and multiple labs for science, music and art.

The two halves will be connected externally by the school courtyard and lyceum, and internally by a hallway. The school’s gymnasium expansion will see the inclusion of locker rooms for sports teams and bleachers for spectators at sporting events.

“We are essentially doubling what we’ve got now,” said Wes Westmoreland, vice chair of the board of directors.

Westmoreland described the additions as the second phase of building the charter school.

The first phase involved a $13 million plan to clear and grade the land the school sits on, as well as building the existing upper campus. After that project was complete the school had enough money left to build its baseball field and a small gymnasium.

Phase two includes the planned expansions to the school, and a final phase includes building an auditorium when funds can be found to do so.

“This is the only way we can do what we need to do given the fact charter schools don’t get any capital funds,” said Debbie Clary, chair of the Pinnacle board of directors. “We run on an extremely tight budget to build the buildings that we do. We cannot go to the state and say ‘we need more money.’”

With construction prices rising due to shortages in supplies and labor, Westmoreland and Clary said there are some concerns about how far the $15 million will go.

“Until we get bids we don’t know,” said Westmoreland. “Depending on how the bids come back, we are going to have to make some decisions. And easy decisions – classroom space is the obvious priority.”

The school is currently in the early stages of working with architects to design the new facilities. The board of directors hopes to send out requests for bids and select a contractor by the end of June. If all goes to plan, work on the new wing of the school can start this summer, and it can be open in time for the 2023-24 school year.

“We are still in the initial planning. There is plenty of room to slow that down, but we are pushing as hard as we can. Now that we have the loan approved, we are ready to move forward,” said Westmoreland.

Shelly Bullard, headmaster at Pinnacle, said she is excited at the prospect of adding more classroom space.

The upper campus currently seats around 600 students from grades 4-12. Being able to spread those students out, plus any future students, will make managing the school much easier, Bullard said.

“Even right now, where we are we have some sharing of space. Now, not always but sometimes if we have an open classroom for a teacher planning, we have somebody come in there to teach because we don’t have another classroom,” said Bullard. “That is going to get tighter between now and the time we are able to move kids into new classrooms. The more of that that is happening, the tighter the building feels. So we are very excited for the kids to have that extra space and the teachers as well, getting their own space to do planning.”

The USDA loan will only be used for construction at the upper school, Clary said, but that doesn’t mean no attention has been paid to the k-3 school.

Pinnacle has over the last two years added new classroom space in its K-3 building, including adding an additional kindergarten class. Clary said it will soon expand to a sixth kindergarten class.

“We are back in a situation where we are busting at the seams over there,” she said. We are probably at some point going to have to build some space over here for them to come over.”

Dustin George can be reached at 704-669-3337 or Dustin.George@ShelbyStar.com.