The Hoffman school is slated to be closed for school purposes officially after a public hearing and vote from the Richmond County Board of Education, but it may not have reached the end of its usefulness to the community.

The public hearing held by the school board Tuesday night at the school district’s administrative offices in Hamlet lasted only a minute and a half. Only one member of the public was on hand to speak.

Hoffman Mayor Pro-Tem Tommy Hart stood up from the gallery at the call for public input and introduced himself.

“If yall aren’t going to use the building for school purposes anymore, I would just hope that you would give (the town of Hoffman) some consideration,” Hart said. “We would like to have first choice on that because we can use that building. We could really do some things with it that would be good for the town of Hoffman.”

After the hearing, Hart explained the town has examined the possibility of locating its town offices in the facility, as well as other undetermined community resources.

For the last school year, it was the site of the Richmond County Transitional School.

School Board Chairman Bruce Stanback explained the board is bound by law to offer the facility to the county. However, if the county does not accept it, the building would stay in the board’s possession to dispose of at its pleasure.

Wednesday, County Manager Jim Haynes said he was not aware of any board members being approached about the facility, and he had not investigated the matter enough to have a solid answer as to whether the county would like to have the building.

“I can’t perceive the county needing it for county functions, unless it was somehow with the town of Hoffman to help them get it,” Haynes said. “However, the school board has been hit hard by budget cuts from the state and from us, so if they thought they could get some money out of it, the commissioners would most likely look at staying out of it and letting them generate the revenue.”

The board voted unanimously to close the Hoffman site for school purposes.

The public hearing also addressed the fate of Ashley Chapel School, which the school board unanimously voted to close for elementary school purposes, moving its students to Cordova.

The Richmond County Transitional School will then be housed at Ashley Chapel next year.

There are approximately 100 fourth and fifth graders at Ashley Chapel, board member Tom McInnis pointed out in discussion, and 200 students already at Cordova.

“The winners in this matter will be the children,” McInnis said. “... The students at Ashley Chapel are not being served because teachers are allocated by the number of students in the seats. So, we’ve got a lesser number of teachers, but if we put them together, we’ll be able to add additional educators.”

In other business:

n Comments from McInnis and board member Wiley Mabe indicate the site preparation phase of the Chalk Road School construction may end up costing less than anticipated.

Originally, testing indicated the soil had a sandy composition and would require remediation tactics to pack it down so it could support the weight of the structure.

First, McInnis noted he’d visited the site.

“We’ve got some of the finest clay in the world out there with a 100 percent compaction rate,” McInnis said. “And they told us the soil was no good, I don’t know, $35,000 - $40,000, maybe we didn’t pay enough.”

“I feel sorry for the engineers who did that testing if they couldn’t find the clay,” Mabe added during his report. “It’s all over the site.”

n The board approved a revised summer work schedule that will include a four-day workweek for schools employees.

Richmond County Schools Superintendent Dr. George Norris explained the county will move to a four-on, four-off schedule during the course of the summer so the building can be closed for four days in a row and save on energy costs.

n The board recognized the winners of several state and national competitions students traveled to during field trips.