Prattville chamber sets education roundtable on county schools' future

The Prattville Area Chamber of Commerce brought city, county and school leaders together Monday night at Central Alabama Community College in Prattville for an Education Roundtable focused on the future of education in Autauga County. The chamber said residents could follow the discussion on Prattville Alive’s Facebook page, putting the conversation in front of families who wanted to hear about staffing, facilities, workforce pathways and what students gain from the system.

Autauga County Schools said it serves nearly 9,000 students across 14 campuses in Autaugaville, Billingsley, Pine Level/Marbury and Prattville, with about 1,200 employees supporting the district. The system describes itself as the only public school system in Autauga County and in the City of Prattville, which makes decisions about school capacity, teacher recruitment and campus condition a countywide issue rather than a single-school concern.

The roundtable came as those same questions were already driving a separate push for a new Prattville High School. Superintendent Lyman Woodfin asked city council and county commission leaders on March 17, 2026, for a funding agreement to build a new high school on the Central Alabama Community College campus. Local reporting on that proposal said the discussion included a requested $6 million annual commitment, along with traffic and infrastructure concerns tied to the site near CACC at 1320 Old Ridge Road.

Prattville City Council said it would participate in the roundtable, and the Autauga County Board of Education posted a July 13 work session notice with other governmental agencies at CACC to discuss the future of education. That put the chamber forum inside a broader set of meetings already focused on how city government, county government and school leaders will handle growth, land use and the cost of new facilities.

The district’s funding picture helps explain the pressure. Autauga County Schools’ 2025 snapshot showed $75,253,946 in revenue, with 60% from the state, 23% from local sources and 17% from federal sources. The same materials said only 9% of state funding was available for non-personnel expenditures in 2025, up from 7% in 2024, leaving limited room for construction, maintenance and other building-related costs.

Woodfin, who became superintendent in July 2023 after nearly two decades in the system, now faces those budget and growth questions as Prattville continues to operate under a mayor-council form of government with council members elected by district. The education roundtable made clear that the next decisions will affect where students learn, how schools are funded and what kind of facilities Autauga County can sustain.