2006 • Fall — School board appoints the FHS Select Committee to evaluate two questions: Should the district add a second high school, and should ninth-graders be added to the district’s concept for high school ?
2007 • February — School board adopts committee’s recommendations to keep Fayetteville as a one-high school district and add ninth grade to campus. • May — Board members anticipate a decision on the location of a high school by June. • June — A public input session is dominated by people who favor a “ central location ” for the city’s high school. The Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce says it favors a new school on a new location. School board members decide they’re not ready to make a decision. BuildSmart, a group that favors keeping the current location, formed as a result of the June input session. • July — The Fayetteville City Council, which has no legal authority over school district matters, votes 6-1 to express its view that Fayetteville High School should remain at its current location. • August — Superintendent Bobby New meets with the University of Arkansas to determine the university’s interest in buying the property. University officials say they want the school district to decide whether to sell or not first before the UA gets serious about evaluating its options for the land, including how much the UA would offer.
• September — In the district’s only school board race on the ballot, Becky Purcell, who favors keeping the school at its current location, defeats Mary Lynn Mantooth, who favored a new school at a new location. The school board decides to appoint a new committee to evaluate options for the high school, this one headed by board member Tim Hudson. Hudson anticipates meetings to begin in January and hopes to report back to the board by April.
• November — A group of former school board members, now called Students First, approached the school board to advocate for a new school on a new location. Also, New reveals sketches for a hybrid renovation-reuse project at the current site that would provide needed space, but it doesn’t include addition of the ninth-graders.
2008 • Jan. 22 — New committee to study high school options plans its first meeting. Some meetings will be public input sessions, but other deliberations will not be open to the public.
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