New plan submitted to ease overcrowding in Duplin schools
By Bonnie Edwards
Published in News on April 13, 2005 1:46 PM
KENANSVILLE -- The Duplin school board is considering another way to relieve overcrowding in the schools.
Shueller, Ferris, Lindstrom & Associates shared with board members this week the newest version of the proposed district building plan. The new alignment would send some students in Warsaw to Charity Middle School and some to North Duplin Junior-Senior High School. North Duplin High would remain the same, unlike previous three plans, which would have closed the school.
The plan also calls for building a new high school somewhere between the Guilford East plant on N.C. 11 and the Summerlin's Crossroads area. The new school would house about 745 students from Warsaw, Kenansville and B.F. Grady middle schools and would cost about $30.4 million.
Former Assistant School Superintendent Alice Scott, a former school board member and the grandparent of a student at B.F. Grady, asked the board to consider another alternative. The growth at B.F. Grady is 16 percent a year, she said. It would be higher at the new high school, she said, and the new high school is going to be too big.
She asked the board to draw a new boundary line west of James Kenan High School and include that portion east of the school in the Kenanville and Magnolia school district. James Kenan could then be converted into a high school for grades 6 through 12. Some of the sixth graders who do not go to James Kenan could go to Warsaw Elementary, which now includes kindergarten through fifth graders. Some of the students in the Warsaw School District could also go to North Duplin Junior Senior High to increase the student population there.
Her plan would include continuing with the latest plans to build an elementary school at B.F. Grady to alleviate the overcrowding there. A new $10.8 million school for 450 children in kindergarten through second grade would also go up in the B.F. Grady district.
She said she believes her plan would cost less than the latest consultant plan and will solve some of the problems immediately, without any construction.