St. Clair Schools Superintendent Jenny Seals hopes many of the questions concerning the who, what, when, where and why of the new Margaret/Argo School have been answered after her recent meetings with various community and school leaders and a work session with the Board of Education Monday.

The main thing Seals wanted to emphasize is that the new school, currently under construction, will be a “feeder school” for both the Odenville and Springville school districts.

When the school opens in August, it will be home to between 500 and 575 kindergarten through fifth-grade students. The school system is looking to pull 200 students from Odenville Elementary, 100 students from Odenville and 220 from the Springville schools.

“Every student living in Margaret and Argo will not attend the new school,” Seals said. “If we put all of the students living in that area, we would have over 1,000 kids in that school,” Seals said. “Some of the students do not want to leave the school they are at right now. Change is hard for a lot of people. We will do everything we can to make this an easy transition.”

There are 11 primary roads in the Margaret/Argo School district.

• Old Margaret Road (starting and including Colonial Lane and Plantation Pines subdivision to County Road 12).

• County Road 12 (from and including Four Seasons Mobile Home Park to Sanie Road).

• All of County Road 6 from Sanie Road (up to and including Summit Ridge Way in Argo).

• All of Sanie/County Road 6 (starting at and including Nelsie Ann Drive to County Road 12).

• All of Old Acton Road (from Sanie Road to the railroad tracks).

• All of South Hillcrest/Hillcrest.

•All of Summit Park Road (formerly North Hillcrest).

• Mountain View Road (most of Mountain View Road from County Road 12 or Low Gap up to Cedar Creek Road).

• All of Cedar Creek Road.

• All of Roulain Road.

• Black Jack Road, depending on the numbers.

Seals said she has received a few calls but has explained to callers this is a feeder school.

“If a student has been zoned for Springville schools, they will go back to Springville once they are in the sixth grade,” Seals said. “Same situation for Odenville.”

Seals added that the major concerns center around change — who are the teachers, who will the principal be, getting children to school on time if a parent has to go to two schools and what will the mascot be because they have always been a Saint or Tiger.

“It is a work in progress,” Seals said. “Some of the teachers who are at the other schools in Odenville and Springville will be teaching at the new school. The principal’s position has been posted. Parents who take their children to school and have children at two different schools will take the children to the Odenville or Springville schools first, then drop off their children at Margaret/Argo. We will probably start school at Margaret/Argo at maybe 8:15 a.m. We will do everything we can to keep parents from rushing to get their children to school. Both Odenville and Springville school districts are looking at having Homecoming the same day.

Board member Angie Cobb said the calls she had received concerned who the principal was going to be.

Board member Terry Green wanted assurance that the new school would have room to grow, and Seals said it would.

The new school will hold 700 students.

Board member Allison Gray said she thought the biggest confusion was that many people living in Margaret thought they should be going to the new school.

“It is going to be a little tricky because we are helping with the overcrowding issue at both Odenville and Springville,” Gray said.