Community leaders get firsthand look at facilities
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on May 12, 2016 1:46 PM
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Meadow Lane Elementary School Principal Karen F. Wellington Whichard, left, talks with 4th Fighter Wing commander Col. Mark Slocum during a tour of the school on Wednesday. She stopped at various classrooms in the school to illustrate the issues that Meadow Lane has, such as overcrowding, exposed wires and difficulty maintaining facility temperatures.
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News-Argus/ALAN CAMPBELL
Wayne County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Michael Dunsmore, left, talks with Wayne County Commissioners Wayne Aycock, center, and Ray Mayo during a tour of Meadow Lane Elementary School.
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News-Argus/ALAN CAMPBELL
Pictured is hardened roofing tar which had melted and dripped from the roof of the Meadow Lane Elementary School gymnasium.
Ever wonder what would happen if community leaders came together to improve the quality of school buildings in the county?
We may just be about to find out.
Nearly four dozen representatives from around the county -- including school board and superintendent, Dr. Michael Dunsmore, county commission and Chairman Joe Daughtery and County Manager George Wood, the city of Goldsboro and Mayor Chuck Allen, the Military Affairs Commission and a contingent from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and Col. Mark Slocum, base commander -- embarked on a three-hour tour Wednesday afternoon to study the contrast in facilities.
The first stop was at Meadow Lane Elementary, located just outside the base gates. It opened in 1958, built with a federal grant to help the district accommodate students living on the base. There have been no significant renovations or additions since, officials said.
Spring Creek Middle School, one of the district's two newest buildings, is a state-of-the-art "smart building" that just opened its doors this school year.
Rounding out the tour was a visit to Eastern Wayne High School, opened in 1969 next to the original New Hope High School, which was built in 1924. The "old gym," still used by the school's wrestling team, was constructed in 1947 and is the last remaining building from the original property. The new gym was built in 1977.
* Meadow Lane
Principal Karen Whichard took the group on a tour of the interior, stopping in several classrooms, to illustrate some of the issues like heating and overcrowding.
"We have desks instead of tables, but we're very crammed in here," kindergarten teacher Kimberly Rosario said. "Even though it's hot outside, we have jackets on -- we're either freezing cold or burning up.
"I feel like I'm in one of those cell phone commercials, 'Can you hear me now,' just trying to make some (computer) connections."
Exposed wires. Lack of infrastructure for technology. Low-hanging pipes in the ceilings and melting tar on the roof that occasionally drips down.
But those aesthetics did not prove to be as glaring as the exterior of the "open" school, which Col. Joe Slavick, commander of the 4th Mission Support Group, said was the comfort-based design of the era when the school was built.
The base's homeland security staff has done assessments on the school, discovering issues and problems at the school.
The playground was a prime example.
Mrs. Whichard pointed out two chain link gates at either end of the playground behind the school. At any given moment during the day, anyone could easily access the grounds simply by opening the gates and walking through.
Security there "scares me to death -- it keeps me up at night," Dunsmore admitted.
"What it really boils down to is it's very difficult for the schools and the staff to react to threats," Slavick said of the multiple entry points. "A set-up like this, it would take a significant amount of time and effort for the administration and staff to secure."
* Spring
Creek Middle
Entering the doors of the newest school was like morphing from the black-and-white landscape of Kansas into the colorized village in "Wizard of Oz."
The school was built in 11 months, said principal Kevin Smith -- 4,000 solar panels on the roof. Energy efficient. High tech, with wireless access in every room.
One entry point. And cameras everywhere.
"One of the things we did at this school, we wanted to build a school where technology came to you; you didn't go to technology," Smith said.
Serving a population where wireless access is spotty -- not all students have the Internet at home, he said -- from a community standpoint, the school offers an important service.
Being "entirely solar," it is also cost effective for the district.
"Each month we get money back for the power we generate," Smith said. "Last month was the first that we generated more electricity than we used."
A dashboard outside the guidance office keeps track of electricity production. It also affords the students another learning opportunity in math and science.
"The school is the curriculum. It's part of the curriculum," Smith pointed out. "We're going to start working with solar cells, figuring out how our building works.
"It will be part of the eighth grade curriculum next year. Everybody has access to that dashboard."
The 350-seat auditorium is another big selling point, for the school staff and students as well as surrounding community.
"We're able to do some things in here that you just don't get to do any more in public schools," Smith said. "We're really getting an opportunity to use it regularly."
He said it had been the site for the recent Miss Spring Creek High pageant and noted that band and chorus classes are growing in popularity as students are drawn to the meeting space.
Smith praised the school board's foresight in keeping that in the plan instead of expanding the gym.
"This is a big geographic area and it's rural, so there are really not any places like this for our community to use," he said. "It was the most economical way to use the funds we had to build this building."
* Eastern
Wayne High
Dunsmore said during one of his initial visits to the school, he was "afraid to sit down" as it was so dirty.
"I'm a stickler for cleanliness," he said, with one caveat -- he believes in the staff at the once-flagship school and its new principal, Lee Johnson, whom he transferred to take over the reins in December.
She has spent recent months enlisting the efforts of students, parents and community members to power wash, paint and plant flowers in an overhaul of the campus. The Civil Engineering Squadron on base has also taken on the project.
Like Meadow Lane, there were a number of glaring things that even elbow grease won't erase. Like the "new gym."
Broken tiles. Showers that don't work. Locker doors broken and bent.
The eyesores are not just felt by newcomers to the campus, Mrs. Johnson said.
"When I came to this school, I did a survey -- students said when they went to other schools, they were ashamed (of their own)," she said.
The newest segments of the campus, like the ninth-grade building, added in 1992, also raised questions.
Daughtery asked why it seemed to look older than the main building.
"It's the lighting," Mrs. Johnson replied. "This is a dim building."
But all was not gloom and doom.
The afternoon trek evoked seeds of hope for the district moving forward.
Allen kicked off the sentiments in the "East Campus" hallway of the 12-classroom building at Eastern Wayne, first pointing out that the bulk of the group had either grown up in Wayne County or lived here for a long time.
"If you really look at the three people that are really trying to work on this, they are not from here -- George Wood, Col. Slocum and Dr. Dunsmore," he said, thanking them "for things we haven't been able to do for 20 years.
"I don't know what's magical about them (but) this is the most momentum I have seen. We've talked about it for 20 years, but we didn't have the traction. Today, I feel we have traction."
Slocum said that 10 percent of students in Wayne County Public Schools are military-connected, the other 90 percent being Wayne County children.
"The collateral benefit of what we're discussing today is just as good for the non-military kids," he said. "We're here to help. We want to help but we can't do it by ourselves."
Daughtery agreed that there is much to be done, suggesting the schools represent this county.
"The reputation of our county is in our schools and we've got to make sure it's nice. What we saw earlier was not nice," he said, adding, "Chris (West, school board chairman), you need to do a better job."
"With your help," was West's reply.
After the group dispersed, West said the situation had not arisen overnight and it will take time to remedy it.
"This is a work-in-progress," he said. "This is hopefully the first of many more meetings until we can get it done. I just hope that everybody's on board and can appreciate what we're trying to do.
"It's not just about the military or about Wayne County students. We've got 19,000 students we're responsible for."