The Moore County school board reviewed plans to either renovate or replace the 1950 Carthage Elementary School at the Jan. 6 work session, and at the regular business meeting on Jan. 13, it recommended holding a public hearing in February for a new 600-capacity school.
The public will be allowed to speak for six minutes instead of only three minutes, and the board suspended policy 2300, so the board may interact with speakers when either party has questions or needs clarity.
Currently, enrollment is 340 students, with a 10-year expectation of 600.
Jenny Purvis, assistant superintendent for operations, reviewed committee reports at the Jan. 13 meeting. She said it would cost $13.5 million for repairs and basic updates, not including expanding capacity or improving safety, for the existing school.
In 2023, the master replacement plan was approved by the school board, and it estimated the cost of replacing Carthage Elementary School at $40 million.
The construction committee met with staff, the school improvement team, PTO, the Town of Carthage, the Centennial Committee, and parents.
There are currently no design plans for a new school or renovation.
The attendees were offered two options, renovate or a new building.
“All favored a new school,” Purvis said.
On a vote on location, building on a new site garnered one more vote over the “constraints” of the 7.6-acre existing site, according to Purvis.
Concerns about keeping the same location at 312 Rockingham St. are congested traffic, the difficulty of adding rooms, the need to take in the ball field to add rooms, the 30-foot slope where the school sits on a hill, the forecasted growth of Little River Community, nowhere to place modular units, the need for larger classrooms and rooms for nurses and counselors, and the safety factor of the buildings not being connected to meet safety standards.
New school core areas, the library, gym, and lunchroom, need to meet a 10-year capacity of 600 students to be at 87% capacity. While the classrooms may be built out to 450 capacity at the time of the build.
The design of the classrooms allows easy expansion, but before the school is built, Purvis said they need to consider the cost of building 450 or 600 to ensure their best financial decision.
After the discussion on Jan. 13 about the public hearing, a lengthy discussion on the need for small community schools and the board’s planning process followed.
“We have a flawed planning process,” school board member David Hensley said about the committee meeting offering only two options when there was a third option.
Hensley said the third option is to renovate and to build new because small community schools are better than “factory” schools.
Concerning the time it takes to add the third option, Hensley said that efficiency was not the answer to education.
Hensley added that the planning process should have had funding as the first action because the board did not know how it was going to pay. He urged the board to “tweak the planning process” in February.
Members Ken Benway and Pauline Bruno vocalized support for small community schools.
Member Dr. Amy Dahl said a parent spoke with her at Food Lion about small community schools but said adding option three to both renovate and build a new school would be extra work for staff and prolong improvements. She wanted to move forward with only options one and two.
Superintendent Dr. Tim Locklair said the board needed to conduct a study before it added option three.
Vice Chair Shannon Davis said the idea to renovate and build new “has been out there.”
“It is time to hear the public since we’ve been at it since 2021,” Chair Dr. Robin Calcutt said about agreeing with Dahl.
Hensley said that because no architectural plans had been made, they would not have lost any time.
The public hearing will be held on Feb. 3 at 5:30 p.m. at the Central Office, located at 5227 Highway 15/501 in Carthage.
Read about the May 2021 Town of Carthage and school board meeting on whether to replace or rebuild Carthage Elementary School here.
~Written by Sandhills Sentinel journalist Stephanie M. Sellers. Stephanie is also an English instructor at Central Carolina Community College. She is the author of young adult fiction, including When the Yellow Slugs Sing and Sky’s River Stone, and a suspense, GUTTERSNIPE: Shakespearean English Stage Play with Translation.
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