McDonough High School and McDonough Middle School are on target to open for the start of the 2019-2020 school year.

  An update was given at the March 11 regular meeting of the Henry County Board of Education by Dr. Raymond Bryant, chief operations officer for the district. He gave a progress report of the ongoing construction with photos from inside the structures as well as aerial shots.

  Administrators, faculty and staff are to be moved into the new facilities in June, and a ribbon cutting is currently scheduled for July 30, two days before the first day of classes August 1.

  The two schools were planned as replacements for Henry County High and Henry County Middle, and as such were included in the E-SPLOST referendum approved by voters in November of 2013.

  In response to questions from school board members, Bryant explained that attendance zones will not be changed for either of the new schools. Students now at Henry County High and Henry County Middle will be attending McDonough High and McDonough Middle.

  As part of the presentation, logo designs with the letter M for McDonough were shown. The school mascot will remain the Warhawk.

  District facilities and maintenance director Josh Malcom said that student capacity will be just over 1,600 for the high school and just over 1,000 for the middle school.

  In other business, the board approved a $15,330,000 bid for renovations and modifications to six schools: Locust Grove High, Locust Grove Middle, Bethlehem Elementary, New Hope Elementary, Rock Spring Elementary and Tussahaw Elementary. The work will include a multi-purpose addition and strings room addition at Locust Grove High.

  The contractor who submitted the approved bid is MEJA Construction of Peachtree City. All of the funding for this contract is provided in the district’s special-purpose local option sales tax program.   The vote to approve the bid was unanimous.