Students in the Corbin Independent School District will now be attending classes on Friday, Feb. 14, which had previously been scheduled as an off-day.
During a special called meeting Tuesday afternoon, the Corbin Independent Board of Education authorized Superintendent Dave Cox to categorize Valentine’s Day as a make-up day due to the large number of in-person classes missed this school year due to inclement weather and the I-75 shooter search.
Cox said he wanted to call the meeting Tuesday because this would give people three weeks of notice in order to make other plans if they had intended to take that weekend for a long getaway.
Cox noted that the district missed six days in connection to the I-75 shooter search in the fall. The district categorized five of those days as NTI (Non-Traditional Instruction) Days, but the other day as just a day to be made up. This will be done on Feb. 14.
Cox noted that 12 or 13 districts missed several days due to the I-75 shooter search in Laurel County. In addition, some other school district also missed days in the fall because of some pseudo threats.
Under state law, school districts are limited to 10 NTI days per year.
Cox said that the state legislature has been approached about giving school districts some additional NTI days due to the I-75 shooter search, and other security concerns, but this can’t happen until the state legislature reconvenes in February.
The district has also missed a number of other days due to inclement weather, but district officials didn’t have a precise number Tuesday on how many that has been so far.
Cox said that it is likely at this point that most additional days missed will be made up at the end of the school year.
Also, during Tuesday’s meeting, the board awarded the special inspection/quality control position for the Corbin High School Auxiliary Gym project to Solid Ground, which has done soil and concrete testing on several other school district construction projects in the past.
Solid Ground was the lowest of the three bidders at $34,500.
Cox said that weather permitting, construction on the auxiliary gym is expected to begin within the next two weeks and should be completed by December 2025 or spring 2026.
The new auxiliary gym will have about 15,000 square feet, and it will be stripped for basketball and volleyball. It will also have seating for up to 400 people.
The auxiliary gym will have full-size wooden floor, six fixed basketball goals, and the walls will be padded on each end of the floor. There will also be multi-use scoreboards on each end.
A student walkway will be built from the school to the new auxiliary gym, which will sit back at least 20 feet off the property line with 15 new angled parking spots in front of it, and another 40 new parking spots in a lot beside it.
