Eva Harris Alternative School will continue to serve thecommunity as a school for disadvantaged children.

The General Mississippi Baptist State Convention was awarded thecampus Monday night when its bid of $90,000 for the property wasaccepted by the Lincoln County School District Board ofEducation.

“By doing this, we’re still able to help children, only nowacross the entire state. We feel good about an organization likethat getting it,” said Superintendent Terry Brister.

The Rev. Eddie Alsworth, a Brookhaven associate of themissionary association, said plans are to make the campus a schoolfor disadvantaged or troubled youth.

“Our plans are to work with the law enforcement agencies to workwith kids kicked out of school,” he said. “We want to provide analternative method for them to get an education.”

The school will not serve as a detention facility, Brister said,and will have no enforcement capacity. Rather, it will serve toeducate children who are unable to attend schools for otherreasons, such as abandonment or the imprisonment of parents.

Plans include adding a dormitory to the campus while theproperty is upgraded and renovated, Alsworth said. They alsoinclude the campus growing to accommodate approximately 200students.

Alsworth said there is no time frame set for the plan yet, butthey were expecting to begin renovations as soon as possible.

Students currently attending Eva Harris will continue to do sountil the end of the school year, Brister said. A new alternativeschool plan that will keep the alternative students on their homecampuses was approved by the board in January and goes into effectnext year.

The approval of the new alternative school plan allowed thedistrict to remove the last vestige of their operations from theEva Harris campus. The property was declared surplus last month inorder for the district to sell it.

The $90,000 bid was in the range Brister expected to draw on thecampus, he said.

“At one time we may have been able to get more than that, butwhen wear and tear and the need for refurbishment are taken intoaccount, I think they bid accordingly,” he said.