The Pineville Independent Board of Education was able to lower the tax rate on real property from 77 to 74.4 cents per $100 of assessed value during their regular meeting on Wednesday. The rate for personal property stayed at 77 cents.

The board had raised the tax rate last year to qualify for a greater share of equalization funds from the state and roughly double the district’s bonding capacity to make facility improvements possible.

“We had the opportunity to get the equalization funding from the state by increasing the tax rate last year and it gave us access to a lot of money to make improvements to our facilities,” Superintendent Russell Thompson said. “With the board making that tough decision last year, they were open to reducing the taxes and help out our community if we had the opportunity. That opportunity presented itself and that’s exactly what the board did. I really commend the board on their decision-making. Not only did they have the Pineville Independent School System in mind, they also placed a high priority on taking care of their community.”

Board Chairman J.R. Golden said the board made the decision he hoped they would.

“I was hoping the board would make the  decision that they did and take this opportunity to lower the tax rate after we asked the community to buy in last year and help us get our bonding capacity up. We did vote to take the compensating rate which lowered the (real) property tax rate from 77 to approximately 74 cents (per $100),” he said.

Golden said he felt the school system as a whole was moving in a good direction.

“It’s not public information at this point, but our test scores are going in the right direction and you’ll see more of that in a month or so. Also, we have several infrastructure projects underway or in the works that are going to bring facilities to the school — and not just the athletic field,” Golden said. “We’re going to have a new building to house our preschool program that we hope will become the go-to preschool and we’re also adding parking for our school system. We really appreciate the community’s support and we want the community to know that we’re not ignoring them and not looking to just jack up the rates every chance we get.”

The board also received an update on the construction at the football field. The new bleachers and press box have been installed and the grass has taken well to the playing surface.

“I would encourage anyone who hasn’t to drive by and see the new bleachers and press box that we brought in. Where we had bleachers before that were being condemned, now we’re able to have wonderful bleachers,” Thompson said. “They’re even better than what I imagined they were going to be. We appreciate the work of our architect Ben Boggs of Clotfelter-Samokar and Gilpin Construction. They’ve done an excellent job and the concrete around the field looks great.”

He said the architect is looking into whether something can be done with the old field house that contains the visitors locker room, concession stand and bathrooms.

“We’re exploring options of doing a little bit of work in there if we have enough money remaining,” Thompson said. “We also have begun the project of blacktopping our parking lot that we purchased. I know when anyone comes into Pineville there are big concerns about parking. We hope this parking lot will better everyone’s experience when they come to Pineville Independent School and our city. It was much needed so we’re excited to get that going as well.”

Pineville High School’s first two scheduled home games — August 23 against Clay County and August 30 against Rockcastle County — will be played at Union College to give the grass on the field time to take firm hold.

“Union College has really stepped up and given back to local schools. We are so blessed to have someone willing to work with us and able to give us the opportunity for our students to have a great Friday night high school environment,” Thompson said. “They have basically opened their doors to us. Our kids are looking forward to it and we are very appreciative of Union College for allowing us to do that.”

October 4th is now the target date for the first high school game on the new field. Fencing is going up around the field and the only issue remaining is with the grass around the sidelines.

“We’re going to be addressing that with the construction manager. If that grass around the sidelines is not ready we may have to do sod or something like that,” Thompson said. “But we have the full intention of being ready to go on the field by October 4th.”

There is a middle school game scheduled for September 19. It has yet to be determined if the field will be playable by that date.

The board also received an update on the school’s library as well as a new college classroom for dual credit students.

“The library is going to offer a bookstore-type setting for some of our older students. That’s going to be in the detail room separate from the current library. So we’re expanding what our library can offer our students,” Thompson said.

Grace Health and Winds of Change now have behavioral health counselors available for students at Pineville.

“We are excited to bring those two in so we can have more mental health counseling in our school,” Thompson said.

The board approved the updated student handbook.

“Dr. Boster did a great job of getting our handbook up to date to where it needed to be,” Thompson said. “Our parents can get online and view the changes that have been made.”

The school is putting an emphasis on their Career Tech Education (CTE) programs. Those include Entrepreneurship, Coding, Vet Tech and Aerospace Engineering

“We’ve been offering those four programs and we are getting funding to help those programs. We have been able to buy things like drones and 3D printers for our students,” Thompson said. “It gives our students opportunities that we’ve never been able to have here at Pineville. In the last three to four years we have been building our CTE program steadily to point where we have four very solid programs and we want our parents to be aware of the opportunities that we’re offering at Pineville Independent.”

Overall, Thompson said the new school year was off to a fantastic start at Pineville.

“We have high expectations here at Pineville Independent and we feel like our students and teachers have responded well to those high expectations and we look for great things to come throughout this school year,” he said.

He said he was pleased to see hundreds of people come out for the school’s Open House and a packed gym for Meet the Mountain Lions.

Thompson added that athletics are also off  to a great start throughout the school.

“Our volleyball team had a game to showcase the old gym and the floor looks great. It was a great atmosphere for volleyball,” he said. “Our middle school basketball teams have had great success so far this season and the eighth grade football team got a win against Lynn Camp.”

Flag football for the younger students started on Thursday evening.

“We’ve got a lot of great things going on here at Pineville Independent,” Thompson said.