MADISON, Alabama — Madison City Schools is reminiscing on 25 years, and the Madison Chamber held a Back to School/ Legacy Celebration this morning to celebrate with a 'Then, Now and What's Next' presentation. Madison City Schools Superintendent Dr. Ed Nichols said this celebration is really twofold. "It was the state of the schools where we can inform our community about what's happening in their school district and at the same time celebrating 25 years of the history of this school district and the accomplishments that have been created in that 25 year span."
1998 Madison City Council member Sally Warden also said 25 years ago they took a giant leap of faith in forming the school system, "Knowing what we had to do to make the best education system for our kids here in Madison, and over the years, it's just grown and grown."
The journey from 1998 to now has not always been easy. "We were part of Madison County School Systems, we had overcrowded busses, overcrowded classrooms, not enough resources, and we just knew we had to do better for our children. And so we actually it all started when we passed the 11 mil property tax back in 1993 that gave us the funding to move forward and take that giant leap of faith," Warden said.
Dr. Nichols agrees and adds another key point. "When we started the school district in 1998, with 5600 students and six schools, I don't think anybody envisioned that 25 years later, we would have almost 13,000 students and 12 schools."
So what's next for the school system? "We've got a new elementary school that we are going to break ground on here in the fall that will give us plenty of capacity at the elementary level. we've got a new middle school that came on line this year journey that's going to give us that. so we're going to have to really look at our high schools, because currently they each have about a capacity of 4400. we're going to be looking at 4800. so we're going to look both at expansions on their facilities, but also an innovation center," Dr. Nichols continued.