By KAY S. PEDROTTI
Staff Writer

More than 350 students assigned to the new Peeples Elementary School will begin the school year in the old Fayette County High School miles away in Fayetteville unless the Fayette County Board of Education says otherwise, the school superintendent said at a special board meeting Monday.

Dr. Dave Brotherton explained at length that school system personnel had determined that the B Building at LaFayette Educational Center, the new name for the old high school complex, is the best option for housing Peeples' students for "about three weeks" until the new school on Ga. Highway 74 south is finished.

A vocal group of about 30 parents challenged the superintendent's assessment, calling for temporary classrooms at Spring Hill Elementary. Six citizens were allowed to address the board with questions and concerns. Their comments, all opposed to locating the Peeples students at LaFayette, ranged from the well-worn state of the 1985 building to potential contact between young grade-schoolers and older students who attend Alternative School classes in LaFayette's A Building.

Brotherton told the board that he felt J&R Construction, contractors for the new school, is "too optimistic when they say they can open on Aug. 24." Since it's likely to be several weeks after school-opening date before Peeples is ready for occupancy, Brotherton said, he "felt it prudent to have a contingency plan" for where Peeples students will attend classes initially. Parent Doreen Barr cited the six-month delay in getting into Starr's Mill High and Rising Star Middle, commenting that Brotherton's three-week estimate might be wrong.

Sandra Watson, Peeples principal, told the group that "if we can't be in our own building," she felt that the B Building alternative was best. Classrooms are large, she said, and there is enough room to house all students on one level. There is work to be done, she said, but Brotherton assured the parents that the B Building would be ready for occupancy sooner than the new facility.

Russell Lightfoot disagreed. Father of a kindergarten child, Lightfoot said he personally toured the old building and found ceiling tiles damaged from still-dripping water, roof-leak damage on the second floor, electrical outlets placed on the floor "which need to be removed for safety," and "the problem of rest room facilities that are too big for little kids."

Lightfoot said he felt that getting the B Building ready and the new school ready are "neck and neck ...I'm not sure if the new school wouldn't be ready first, with all these problems at the LaFayette Center."

Debbie DeBartola, whose children are third and fifth graders who will go to Peeples, said "we need an alternative to this alternative." Even if trailer classrooms at Spring Hill would be some distance from the school's cafeteria, library and restrooms, she added, that inconvenience would be preferable to the older facility. Besides the old building's flaws, and the presence of the alternative students, she feels the older facility is "really not secure; there are just too many doors, too many ways in and out," DeBartola said.

Board of Education member Debbie Condon said she felt the group present at the meeting had a "misconception" of Alternative School students. Most of them, she said, "have made mistakes and we are giving them a second chance ... we even have some who apply to go, without having done anything." All the "really bad" students, she said, "are gone under our zero tolerance policy," Condon said. Brotherton agreed with her statement.

DeBartola said yesterday that some parents of younger children plan to keep them at home until the new school is ready, or enroll them in private schools. In answer to a parent's question, Brotherton said at the board meeting that children "ages 7 through 16" are required to attend school under Georgia's compulsory school attendance laws.

The board also acted to place all 12-month employees on a uniform schedule of holidays and policies for earning vacation days by length of service. The new calendars will take effect first for principals and assistant principals, Brotherton said, with all 12-month employees on the new plan by the 1999-2000 school year. Another unanimous vote of the four board members present allows benefits available to the school system's full-time employees to be offered to certain part-time employees.

Monday's meeting was a special called session, followed by a "work session" which was not declared as such, but no votes were taken. For 35 minutes at the beginning of the meeting, the board left the meeting room for an executive session to discuss personnel matters, possible litigation and what board member Darryl Chaney described as a "real estate matter," the sewer system at Jenkins Road. The board's attorney, Sarah Murphy, did not meet with them for the first 20 minutes of the executive session.