The Moore County Board of Education held a work session and organizational meeting Monday.
New Board Member Pam Thompson was sworn in and the board re-elected by acclamation Helena Wallin-Miller as Board Chair and Libby Carter as Vice Chairman.
The school reassignment for the new elementary school on Camp Easter Road was discussed. The recent public meeting and public comment period generated mostly positive comments. One of the goals of the board has been to attempt to minimize the family disruptions by not requiring families to change school districts more than once.
The board will take final action on the name of the new school at their next regular meeting. The original list of names was well over a 100. Through board action and public comments, the list has been narrowed down to the following five: McDeeds Creek Elementary, Fairway Elementary, Piney Woods Elementary, Camp Easter Elementary, and Pine Meadow Elementary.
Of those, Camp Easter Elementary School has over a 60% percent approval rating. The other names had an approval rating between 18 and 39 percent.
Moore County Schools has an operating budget of $121,000,000, 31 million of which was generated locally with the remainder coming from the state. Approximately 70 percent of those expenses are personnel expenses.
In additional actions, the school approved easements and supplemental site work for the Southern Pines Elementary School. It is hoped that the grading work will be completed by the first week of February with a ground-breaking ceremony to follow shortly afterward.
In presentations to the board, it was reported that Moore County Schools was in compliance with state-mandated class sizes in kindergarten to third grade. The board was also presented a preliminary calendar for 2021 which will be open for public comments through January 2019 after which the board will take final action on the calendar in February 2019.
Also, during the approval of several out of state field trips, the board was informed that no student is denied the opportunity to participate due to costs
The next school board meeting is December 10th.
Written by Sandhills Sentinel reporter, Chris Prentice.
