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The Clarke County Board of Education will vote tonight on whether to buy a building at 394 S. Milledge Ave. to serve as the school district's new headquarters.

The 37,000 square foot building on 2.2 acres, located next door to Clarke Central High School, is valued by the Athens-Clarke County tax assessor's office at $3.9 million. The square footage is less than the 60,000 Superintendent Demond Means has said the district needs.

CCSD has been looking for a new central office since selling its Mitchell Street building to Advantage Behavioral Health Systems for $2.8 million in 2016 because then-superintendent Philip Lanoue wanted a more central location. Administrators have been split between the H.T. Edwards building and the Whitehead Road Elementary School annex ever since.

Means wants to move out of H.T. Edwards because the growing Career Academy, which shares the building, needs more space. Lanoue's plan to move into the old West Broad School was nixed when a space needs assessment found that there was not enough room for offices and parking. 

In addition, the school board is scheduled to vote on hiring its own outside counsel to draft an alternate response to a recent complaint to the accreditation agency AdvancED.

The called meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. at H.T. Edwards.