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By: Erin Smith
Residents of the town of Clarkton, staff, faculty, parents and students of Booker T. Washington and Clarkton School of Discovery all gathered in the Media Center of the Clarkton School of Discovery Tuesday night to learn the fate of their respective schools. Those in attendance were asked to write their questions on a card and hand them in ahead of the meeting. Later in the meeting, CSD Principal Stephanie Norris and Booker T Washington Principal Elizabeth Ann Brown read the questions submitted and Dr. Taylor responded.
“We certainly thank you for coming out and spending the evening with us and having a discussion about school facilities and how we want to plan the future of Bladen County Schools. It is certainly our pleasure to be able to talk with you and give you an opportunity to ask questions. I know there are many. One of the things the board has desperately wanted to do was to be able to have forums such as these so we could have a dialogue with the community,” said Dr. Taylor.
He told the audience the purpose of the forum is to share the facilities needs for the school district with the public. The discussion also included projected costs and Dr. Taylor said it is a statutory requirement for the school system to hold community forums to receive public input regarding the proposed consolidation plan.
Dr. Taylor gave some of the background of the issue. The board in 2012-13 reviewed an option to be able to lease schools. Hoke County developed a school named Sandy Hope through a lease option. Dr. Taylor said because of that, Hoke County was able to build the school quickly and save time and money. He said Bladen County studied something similar to that but many of the tax breaks in existence at the time are no longer available and the Bladen County Board of Commissioners were not willing to commit to that particular process because it was new and Hoke County was the first county to do it in the state.
The board then convened the 21st Century Committee to study what Bladen County needed to do as a district with regard to its facilities. The Committee took about one year to complete their study and based on the work done by the committee, Dr. Taylor said it was easier to maintain the existing facilities. The Committee recommended the county consider building new facilities in the year 2021 when the debt for the two high schools was retired.
Dr. Taylor said the county has also tried on several occasions to pass a quarter-cent sales tax. “We have not been successful in doing that. Whether it was for the schools or some other portion of the county government or a combination. We just haven’t been able to do that to help offset the costs of any construction,” said Dr. Taylor.
He told those gathered that in 2015, there were concerns about declining enrollment numbers. He pointed out that a handout for the evening had the incorrect number of students for BTW. It should have indicated 188 students enrolled at the school. Dr. Taylor said in conversations with the Bladen County Board of Commissioners, it was pointed out the district is losing students for a number of different reasons. Dr. Taylor said the Commissioners suggested the Board of Education review its facilities and look at consolidating schools.
In September 2015, the Board of Education met and about 250 people attended the meeting. Dr. Taylor said, as a result of that meeting, the district office staff requested the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction perform a facility study and in Summer 2016, NC DPI presented their findings.
“We heard about the impact of closing Bladenboro High School and Tar Heel High School and how it affected those communities,” said Dr. Taylor. He said a lesson learned by the Board is the need to develop a plan that did not close schools in all of the towns or communities. Dr. Taylor said due to Bladen County being a Tier One county, any decision that is reached is going to be a difficult one. The property tax rate is already high and anything that is done to increase the tax rate places the burden on a small number of people because not everyone owns property in Bladen County.
He said consolidation is about finding a solution for aging buildings, rising costs and declining enrollment. Those three items are what has led the Board of Education to make the decision to consolidate. The 13 buildings which make up the school district are aging and the newest facilities in the district are about 16 years old. The two high schools will require new roofs in the next three years at a cost of $400,000 each along with maintenance on aging buildings throughout the county.
The proposed consolidation plan recommends a new K-8 school replacing Tar Heel Middle and Plain View Primary Schools. This would bring the total number of students to 472 in the new school and the county would need to hire one additional teacher for the new school.
East Arcadia School would become a K-4 school. Some students from Booker T. Washington School would be moved to East Arcadia bringing the projected enrollment up to 111 and the need for three less teachers.
Elizabethtown Primary School would become a K-4 school as well. Students from Booker T. Washington would be combined with students at ETP bringing the projected enrollment number to 514 and reducing the number of teachers needed by 3.
Bladen Lakes Primary School would become K-4 and students from ETP would be combined with students at BLP to bring the enrollment numbers to 355. And a need for three more teachers.
The Clarkton School of Discovery would remain open and consist of grades 5-8. Some students from East Arcadia School would be combined with CSD students to bring the projected enrollment number to 354 and the remaining 5-8 students at East Arcadia School would move to Elizabethtown Middle School bringing their projected enrollment to 450.
The projected savings to the district would be about $325,000 for personnel and $100,000 for utilities.
The estimated costs of the facilities needed would be about $38 million. That includes a new k-8 school in Tar Heel at a cost of $27 million; multipurpose buildings at Bladenboro, Elizabethtown, and Bladen Lakes Primary at a cost of $3 million; athletic field houses at East Bladen and West Bladen High Schools at a cost of $2.5 million; an addition to Bladen Lakes School at a cost of $500,000; and additional upgrades of $5 million which include a cafeteria expansion at Elizabethtown Primary School, a multipurpose building at East Arcadia School and other upgrades.
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