OXFORD, MISS — The Oxford School District Board of Trustees voted to approve a resolution last week allowing the district to enter into a loan agreement with Regions Bank for a principal amount of $7,225,000 to help fund the expansion of Bramlett Elementary School.

The loan, which will not have any effect on local taxes, will be paid for using an existing 3-mill note that rolled off the books in December.

The project will include the creation of 13 new classrooms at Bramlett Elementary, as well as a storm shelter with capacity to hold every student on campus.

New Mississippi building codes require schools to provide storm shelter for any new classrooms, but since Bramlett did not have storm shelters on campus the district opted to build one large enough to house every student rather than just the students in the new classrooms.

The new classrooms will be built where the playground is currently located, and the playground will be shifted over to accommodate those classrooms.

The district will also create a two-lane road that will pass behind the Bramlett campus to ease traffic on Bramlett Blvd. and Jefferson Ave. during pick-up and drop-off times.

“Basically, we will put a two-lane road that will go all the way around, completely behind Bramlett that will be able to queue about 150 cars, which gets those cars off of Bramlett Blvd.,” said Roberson. “That’s a significant part of the cost—building that road.”

The price of the project has risen dramatically in recent months due to skyrocketing construction costs.

“It started out at about $300 per square foot, the next time we met with our construction management architects it was about $400 per square foot, and then we met about a week-and-a-half ago and it was $528 a square foot,” said district superintendent Bradley Roberson.

The district requested a variance from the city’s Planning Commission on Apr. 12 to address possible changes to natural terrain and tree canopies, and Precision Engineering, the company overseeing the project, will go before the commission with a final site plan later this month.