EAST COBB - After months of protesting the Cobb Board of Education, the Wheeler High School community may get the $20 million renovation project at their school that they have been promised since 2008.

Dr. John Crooks, who represents the Wheeler community, asked the board at its Wednesday meeting for an Aug. 26 vote to fund the entire $20 million project, which calls for adding a new two-story wing and other improvements. But this relative triumph did not come without a fight from parents.

On May 26, Wheeler parent Starlet Riviere went to her son's high school with high hopes. SPLOST Chief Doug Shepard had called a community meeting to update parents about the renovation project.

Built in 1964, Wheeler is above its 1,837 capacity, housing an enrollment of 2,076 at the end of last school year. Parents say the school is simply too small for its current student body and that most of its 95 classrooms aren't even up to the state's standard for size. A major concern for parents, Riviere said, is a mold problem in the main hallway. Additionally, Wheeler administration has told the Journal about an asbestos issue.

"Everybody, I think, had that attitude of finally. Finally, we're going to get a building that is commensurate with what we know happens within the building," Riviere said of going into the May 26 meeting.

Both Shepard and architect Jerry Fountain of the Norcross-based firm Foreman Seeley Fountain Architecture greeted a crowd of about 50 parents and presented a fly-by video of the renovation plans for Wheeler. The plans included a new two-story wing for the 46-year-old school that would house 14 classrooms, eliminate all eight trailers on the campus and be built to accommodate a third floor if need be for future growth.

But when the video was over and the lights came back on, Shepard announced to the audience that the funding was no longer available for the $20 million project, although the preliminary design plans were complete and an architect had been hired. The Wheeler parents became enraged and began asking questions.

"It was disbelief and then just anger," Riviere said. "We all went, 'what? Then why did you come and show this to us? If you all had made that decision, then why not just announce that?' And not that our response would have been any different, but it was almost painful to watch and see how beautiful - and the crowd was 'ooing' and 'ahhing' and 'oh, isn't this great,' and people were clapping - and then all of the sudden, 'no, it's not going to happen.' It's like having your knees knocked out from under you."

Although Shepard said he knew beforehand that funds were not available for the project, district officials thought it would be worse to cancel the public meeting.

Following the gathering, Riviere and a group of about 10 parents sprung into action, determined to find answers to their questions about where the Wheeler funds had gone and to reclaim a project that had been scheduled for their school since SPLOST II.

"When I walked out of that meeting I started going on the Internet," Riviere said. "I started looking at SPLOST money, I started following the trail that led to conversations around the swim team practices that bubbled into more and more people wanting to get involved and help investigate and follow the path."

That path eventually led Riviere and the group of Wheeler parents to district documents indicating that Wheeler had roughly $20 million in several planned renovation projects using SPLOST II and III. In SPLOST II, Wheeler was allotted a line item for $21.7 million in renovations. From that money $10.5 million was used for science labs, leaving $11.2 million. In SPLOST III, Wheeler was allotted $9 million, for a series of Band-Aid projects, such as asphalt paving, clocks, ceilings, doors, fire sprinkler heads and irrigation issues, all of which were to bring the building up to code, rather than provide it with desperately-needed renovations.

Although district officials claim a $20 million renovation project for Wheeler was not clearly stated in the SPLOST III project notebook, Riviere disputes that.

"I believe that it is," Riviere said. "It's in there and if you follow the conversations it's continually referred to."

In 2008, the board set out to create a plan to get rid of the district's portable classrooms and, at that time, Wheeler was targeted in the Quality Classroom Initiative plan. But when the QCI program was mysteriously halted by the district based on questions of legality in November 2009, Dr. Gordon Pritz, assistant superintendent of operational support at that time, still recommended that the board spend $11 million of excess funds in SPLOST II for Wheeler repairs.

As recently as May 12, 2010, Shepard provided the board with a list of SPLOST II projects that still needed to be complete, which included the $11.2 million for Wheeler that was left after adding science labs. But yet on at the May 26 public meeting, Shepard told Wheeler parents the money couldn't be found in SPLOST II.

"What happened between May 12 and May 26?" Riviere asks.

And indeed, that question is yet to be resolved.

At the board's June 9 meeting, Chairwoman Lynnda Crowder-Eagle read a statement about the history of the Quality Classroom Initiative, concluding with the fact that there was no more money in SPLOST II for the project and that the only way it could be funded was through a fourth SPLOST.

Meantime, Riviere and several parents went to the board-appointed Facilities and Technology committee meeting on June 14 to show that committee the same video that had been presented to the Wheeler community and ask for their help. At that meeting, Crooks, who had been an initial supporter of the project, announced to Riviere and the committee that the funds were simply not available and that the project might have to wait until SPLOST IV, as Crowder-Eagle had said at the previous board meeting.

Riviere and the fellow parents finally got through to the board at its July 22 meeting, when the board requested a presentation of the fly-by video. Following that presentation, Crooks changed his tune and requested full funding for the project from the board.

"It has always been the right thing to do," Crooks said. "And if the board chooses to do that then the funding is there."

Crooks explained that the board would have to use the money it had leftover in SPLOST II to fund the Wheeler project, but take on a risk since the project was not a line item in that SPLOST.

"The board has some risk to use those savings without a line item to attach it to," Crooks said. "So the board would have to say, look, we want to use this money for Wheeler."

As for the future of Wheeler, Riviere said she and the community are still ready to fight for their school's needs.

"We're going to have a huge contingency there on the 26th," Riviere said of plans for the board's next meeting. "We want this board to know that this is something that needs to happen and it needs to happen now. We believe that the funding is there, it just needs to be pulled together."