HUNTINGTON -- The Cabell County Board of Education unanimously agreed to sell one of its soon-to-be-vacated middle schools to Cabell County Community Services Organization.

CCCSO, if it receives a $2.7 million Housing and Urban Development grant, will take possession of Huntington Middle School -- formerly known as West Middle -- paying the school board $9,999, then using grant money to renovate the school to create 20 senior housing apartments and a new central office and senior community center.

The grant application is due Nov. 13, and it can't be sent without a deal in place for the property.

CCCSO Executive Director Robert Roswall said there is a need in the west end of Huntington for this type of housing. And it also helps keep the character of the neighborhood because the old school will continue to be used.

"It's a preservation issue," Roswall said.

Huntington Middle School and Southside Elementary are in their last years in their current facilities. Both will be vacated at the end of the school year and move to a new shared campus at the site of the former Cammack Elementary and Middle schools.

Roswall said he expects an answer on the grant request by the end of January 2010. If approved, CCCSO would have 180 days to produce a final set of plans.

"From beginning to end, it would take about three years (until it would be ready to open)," he said.

Prospective seniors would have to be 62 or older and fit into the low to moderate income bracket. Roswall said the first floor would hold the offices and community center, while the second and third floors would each have 10 apartments.

In other school board news:

Superintendent William Smith told the board members to be ready for a list of reduction in force in December rather than the spring. New legislation pushed the date up, with the intention of having all teachers and staff set on the following school year by early summer.

Smith said he hopes legislators repeal their actions because creating a reduction in force list in December is too early. The list is created each year based on projected enrollment needs and retirements.

"We won't have final graduation information, kindergarten enrollments," Smith said. "There won't be any enrollment data."

He also said that some service and professional staff who qualify for retirement may not have made a decision yet.

Smith said he is preparing a letter to employees to inform them that the reduction in force list is being made early and that more than usual will be on the list until enrollment data becomes more clear.

In an unanimous vote, the board opted to seek a formal advisory opinion from the West Virginia Ethics Commission regarding a Huntington High School administrator who also was the lowest bidder to provide high school students an after-school driver's education class.

The county pays for the online instruction part, while Lloyd McGuffin's company, A1 Drive Right School, provides the in-car instruction for students at both Cabell Midland and Huntington high schools for $285.

In the spring, when McGuffin's bid came in the lower of the two submitted, a secondary schools official sought an informal opinion from the Ethics Commission. It came back with no problems. But board members said the employee (they did not name McGuffin) requested the board get a formal opinion.