Griffin-Spalding County is making room for a new addition to the school system, as the county is gearing up for a groundbreaking ceremony to be held at 1:30 p.m. Thursday.

School officials will be on hand to celebrate the construction of the new state-of-the-art facility, as Rehoboth Road Middle School is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009, serving as a replacement school for Taylor Street Middle School.

According to school officials, the layout of the new school will use similar to floor plans, which were also used to construct Cowan Road Middle School, which opened in 2000; Kennedy Road Middle School, which opened in 2006; and Carver Road Middle School, which opened in the fall of 2007.

“We used the same floor plan, because it would help the students remain consistent. It also helps in design and construction cost,” said Elizabeth Chewning, Griffin-Spalding County School System communication specialist. “We are not reinventing the wheel with every new school addition.” The Griffin-based architectural firm of Manley, Spangler and Smith designed the new middle school facility.

Numerous suggestions from faculty and staff, meant to enhance the students’ education, were implemented in the construction of the new building.

Some of the suggestions included additional doors to close off various hallways, in order to prevent students who are changing classes from disrupting other students who remained in on-going class sessions; adjusting office space for a better flow of traffic; and more storage space for classroom materials.

“We keep fine tuning this particular design to have a more efficient facility. Sometimes the simplest thing can make a big difference, for instance the decision of where is the most efficient place to place an outlet in the classroom,” said Chewning. “Most of the suggestions were ideas of better placement of different features.”

More than 680 students, along with an estimate of 89 faculty and staff members, are expected to move out of Taylor Street Middle School and into Rehoboth Road Middle School when the doors open in the fall of 2009.

Chewning explained the city has out grown the Taylor Street facility. The building does not offer the “modern facility needs” for students to keep up with the technology of today.

Taylor Street Middle School is scheduled to close for one year in 2009.

School officials have not made a concrete decision on whether to reopen the school as a magnet school or perhaps some other special needs facility for students.

Funds collected from the special purpose local-option sales tax were used to build the new state-of-the-art middle school.

“This is not a new tax, this is just part three. Rehoboth Middle School was a top priority for phase three of the school SPLOST,” said Chewning, The facility was included under the 2001 tax package, but was at the time considered the “bubble project” by the Griffin-Spalding County Board of Education.