Preparation for the construction of the new football stadium, gymnasium and fine arts center at Carrollton High School is moving fast, a school system official told the Board of Education Thursday.

“You see the demolition of the stadium and that’s moving very, very quickly,” said Steve Spofford, chief operation officer for the Carrollton City School System. “We went over there the other day and they had already snatched out the ticket booth and the concession stand in an hour and have since moved to the bathrooms.”

The press box and the bleachers will be removed next, opening up the landscape and making it possible to see the elementary school from Trojan Drive.

Demolition of the stadium began Monday.

Members of the Carrollton High School Athletic Booster Club have talked to Aaron McWhorter, owner of N G Turf in Whitesburg, about rolling up the sod on the football field so the club can sell sections of it as a fund raiser, Spofford said.

Brad Tuggle, president of the booster club, said the timing has to be right for them to get the sod.

“We haven’t finalized yet,” Tuggle said. “Depending on if we can coordinate getting someone in there to cut it before Mr. Spofford gets his bulldozers in there.”

Members will just take donations for the sod squares and don’t have a specific fundraising goal in mind, he said.

“It’s more, we just want people to have the opportunity to have some sod from the Trojan Field,” Tuggle said. “It’s more of a sentimental thing more than anything else. ... Raising some funds on it’s just kind of icing on the cake.” The construction crew is now installing curbs and gutters around what will be the new parking lot, to help with erosion control.

“That huge mound of dirt out there, if we ever get any rain is going to be in the middle of Trojan Drive,” he said.

Once demolition is complete construction will continue on the drainage system and the footings will be laid.

“It’s important to remember that 25 to 35 percent of this project is in the ground,” Spofford said. “It’s going to take a while to see something coming out of the ground necessarily.”

Spofford said bids for the rest of the stadium project will opened on Dec. 20. The remaining work to be bid on will include the track and field, the fencing surrounding it, paving a circular drive and concrete work around the stadium.

The project remains on schedule with completion of the new stadium expected in September 2008, Spofford said. The gymnasium and fine arts center at Carrollton High are scheduled to be finished in 2009.

Superintendent Tom Wilson announced that special purpose local option tax income was $367,193 for November. That is up from October’s SPLOST receipts of $333,842 but lower than November 2006 when the school received $374,519.