The Greene County High School construction class is looking to get back to a regular project that they haven’t been able to do for a couple of years. 

Superintendent Tim Christensen says they want the construction class to build a new home, which they haven’t been able to do due to the covid pandemic and the cost of construction materials. However, he tells Raccoon Valley Radio there’s a push to go back to building homes.

“For the program to be what we want the program to be and to be its best, we want to build a house, everybody wants to do that. So we’re having conversations whether we can go back to that.”

Christensen points out the preliminary estimate that was presented to the school board at their regular May meeting was approaching $300,000 for a 1,200-1,300 square foot home. He notes that the board felt uncomfortable moving forward to do the project unless there was a buyer upfront.

“We have had some people reach out to us. So I think what we kind of discussed in the meeting is to maybe reach out to those people and kind of give them those figures, see whether they’re interested or whether they walk away. So that’s kind of the point we’re at because ideally we would love to have a buyer for the house before making the step to actually build it.”

The targeted area in Jefferson is to build the home in the Briarwood Development, west of Jefferson, where the last house the class built is located and owned by current high school varsity football head coach Caden Duncan. It was mentioned at the school board meeting that there was just over $150,000 in the construction account. The board tabled their decision to next month, pending finding a purchaser.