At a Thursday night meeting, the board voted 5-2 to rescind a motion approved in 2002 in which the board voted to renovate Jefferson Forest High School. Until now, the board had not ruled out renovating Jefferson Forest, despite voting in May to not accept a $38 million renovation and enlargement proposal. At the time, a majority of board members said the cost was too much to spend on the aging school.

Last month, the board voted to negotiate a contract with First Choice Public-Private Partners to build a replacement high school for Jefferson Forest and build another combination high school and middle school.

According to school board Chairman David Black, to move forward with plans for the new schools, under Robert's Rules of Order, the board had to rescind the more than 2-year-old renovation vote.

Montvale District representative Shirley McCabe and Moneta District representative Talbot Huff have favored renovating Jefferson Forest as a more cost-efficient use of county tax dollars. They voted against rescinding the renovation vote Thursday and abstained from voting last month on the new school construction.

Huff said the school board needs the supervisors' input before moving forward with plans to build new schools. Tax dollars used for school construction are allocated by the supervisors.

"I would caution the board to wait until they get an agreement from the supervisors," Huff said.

Keith Jones, who represents the Big Island District on the school board, disagreed.

"I think we need to remove the renovation concept totally," he said.

Black noted that the board could still vote to renovate Jefferson Forest at a later date. It seems unlikely, however, that the same majority of board members who have consistently voted in favor of building a new school to replace Jefferson Forest would support such a motion.

Though no firm prices for building the schools have been disclosed, a preliminary draft of the school system's capital improvement plan includes a $32 million estimate for building a 1,000-student high school to replace Jefferson Forest and a $43 million estimate to build a combination high school and middle school.

First Choice's proposal presented to the board in December involved building a replacement for Jefferson Forest next to the school's current location and using the same football field and parking lot. First Choice also has an option to buy farmland on U.S. 460 near Owens Market, where it would build the combined high school and middle school.