Boards talk district lines
By Steve Herring
Published in News on May 5, 2016 2:03 PM
County and school officials Tuesday could agree on the need for more funding for technology and to look at facilities, but still found themselves at odds over redrawing school district lines.
But while the gulf remains, Tuesday's discussion during a joint meeting between Wayne County commissioners and the Board of Education lacked the acrimony that has marked some previous dialogue.
"One of the things that I am hearing from the community, and this is meant in good spirit to the school board, but one of the pushbacks I hear is that the school board in Wayne County will not address school district attendance lines," commission Chairman Joe Daughtery said. "You go to any other community, any other county in the entire state or the nation and they sit there and they look and facility usage and the needs.
"They will tweak a line. They will take this subdivision and move it over so that you re using facilities as they are needed. You don't have a bunch of mobile classrooms at one facility and under utilization of classrooms at another facility. We see that here."
Daughtery made his comments following a preliminary facility needs survey presentation by schools Superintendent Dr. Michael Dunsmore that touched on overcrowded and under utilized classroom space.
"What my concern is, and I am speaking for the citizens out here, my concern is that we are asking that this board please look at the usage of facilities by tweaking lines so you don't have overcrowding in one middle school when right next door is a facility of a middle school that has under utilization," Daughtery said. "That is all I ask."
Daughtery's comments drew a prompt response from school board member Dr. Dwight Cannon.
"I resent that," he said.
"I am sorry," Daughtery said.
"You may be sorry, but I still resent it," Cannon said.
School board Chairman Chris West said Daughtery is entitled to his opinion, but that he begged to differ.
"I will say one thing, hats off to the administration we have here," West said. "I think what he (Dunsmore) has before us, if we will all listen, I think they are diligently working on trying to identify numbers, (school) capacity, classroom spaces that are available.
"I don't think we can look at tweaking or redrawing district lines or anything until we look at what we have actually got."
West said that the board's student transfer policy is a "bit liberal."
"However, we need to look at that as well because until we get every student basically back where their home school should be, then and only the will we know if we have got overcrowdings or whatever," West said. "With the transfer policy we have, we have kids that are out of district all over the county.
"Until we get a good majority of kids back in the district where they go, and belong, only then will we know if we have a problem."
Cannon said what people don't see is how much the school board has talked about district lines, especially school board member Arnold Flowers who is an advocate for redrawing the lines.
"What I am saying is that we hear you, and we agree with you," Cannon said. "We hear it, too. But you just have to deal with what is before you. That is why we understand what you go through. We always want. But you have other people wanting also.
"That district line is an issue that we have talked about all the way back to (former school board members) Shirley Sims and Thelma Smith, and Arnold Flowers -- that is his song. He has really made a song out of redistricting. Maybe you don't hear it much, but I promise you, if you know Arnold Flowers, it (district lines) is always talked about."
Flowers joked that Cannon had die-cast him.
"But I have been an advocate of looking at school district lines since day one," he said. "But having said that, I have learned a lot about that. Mr. Daughtery, there are a whole lot of caveats that are complicated.
"I guess the main one is the human element. When you start messing with people's children, and their mamas, it gets to be very delicate at times. I have never been an advocate for doing anything major and anything rash and anything quick. What you are looking at here this afternoon is the beginning of a slow, thought-out process to start making those tweaks and changes (in facility usage) that you are talking about."
Flowers said that he still has people who will not speak to him over the changes the county made years ago to rescue squads when he was a county commissioner.
"So when you start messing with school district lines that is way and beyond the rescue squad," he said. "So I appreciate Dr. Dunsmore. I think he is on the right track. I have always said that if we have one school and it is bigger than another one, let's begin a slow, methodical process of tweaking district lines."