Board approves plan to combine schools
By Steve Herring
Published in News on May 18, 2016 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Wayne County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Michael Dunsmore, right, addresses the school board during a budget meeting Tuesday. The school board discussed the combining of Meadow Lane Elementary and Edgewood Community Development schools.
A $21.8 million project that would combine Meadow Lane Elementary and Edgewood Community Development schools into a single new facility tops a five-year facilities plan approved Tuesday afternoon by the Wayne County Board of Education.
The new school would be built on the current Meadow Lane campus on East Ash Street.
Located on Peachtree Street, Edgewood serves severely mentally handicapped students.
The second priority on the plan calls for $4.6 million to add 22 classrooms at Fremont STARS Elementary in an effort to ease overcrowding at Northeast and Northwest Elementary schools.
Rounding out the top three as a "future consideration" is $6.1 million to add an auxiliary gym and 16 classrooms at Southern Wayne High School to replace mobile units at the school.
Other "future considerations" include $3.5 million to add 12 classrooms at Brogden Primary School at Dudley to replace mobile units and allow for population growth; future Goldsboro Middle School (currently Wayne Middle High Academy), cost to be determined to renovate or replace the existing gym to allow for competition use at the middle school level; $17.2 million to replace Rosewood Middle School; and renovate or replace the main building at Fremont STARS Elementary, to be determined.
However, the plan is more than just building classrooms. The school board is also working to address concerns expressed by Wayne County commissioners that the school system is not making the maximum use of existing classroom space.
The plan recommends that the present Wayne Middle High Academy, an alternative school, be converted back to its original intent and become a middle school.
That would help alleviate overcrowding at Norwayne Middle School.
The school board unanimously voted to adopt the plan after member Eddie Radford was assured that the long-discussed needs at Southern Wayne High School at Dudley would be included. Board member Dr. Dwight Cannon was not at the meeting.
The plan now goes to commissioners, who had asked for a summary of the school board's facilities needs plan.
"They wanted to see where we were at, and where we were going," Superintendent Dr. Michael Dunsmore said during Tuesday's special-called session.
Meadow Lane has taken the facilities needs spotlight in recent weeks following behind-the-scenes meetings between county and schools officials, representatives of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and others local leaders.
During a May 9 joint meeting of commissioners and the school board, Dunsmore said conditions at the school, including security concerns, have created a perception in the military that the county's schools "are not good."
Concerns were expressed as well that conditions at the school could have an adverse impact on decisions concerning the base's future including BRAC Commission findings.
Commissioners have said they are in no mood to increase taxes to fund school projects. But following a tour last week that included Meadow Lane Elementary and Eastern Wayne High School, commission Chairman Joe Daughtery said that "everything is on the table" including potential sales and property tax increases.
"This (plan) is a summary of the specific needs," Dunsmore said during Tuesday's meeting. "I did an analysis of where we are. Obviously, the priority need is the Meadow Lane Elementary project. With that we added the caveat of possibly looking at and doing a study to include the Edgewood School with that.
"One of our challenges with the Edgewood School -- and I just want to highlight that we are only one of two in the state, and it is a tremendous, tremendous program -- one of our challenges is in the older building. It (state) changed the requirements to keep your licensure. So long story short, we are judged basically the same way a hospital would be on what we need to care for these children."
Michael Hayes, the school system's finance officer, has looked at the cost of operating the building especially for upkeep and maintenance and it is "really, really cost prohibitive," Dunsmore said.
"We can save a tremendous amount of money by including that in the Meadow Lane project," he said. "It is really going to save a drain on our maintenance budget."
Those cost savings could be diverted to debt service and other priority needs, he said.
Folding Edgewood into a new Meadow Lane as its own separate wing would give the county a state-of-the-art facility to meet the needs of this growing population of children, Dunsmore said.
Board member Rick Pridgen said the school system had a budget line item for Edgewood that the county had "always given to" as a separate entity aside from the local budget.
Pridgen asked if the school system would continue to get the line item from the commissioners should Edgewood and Meadow Lane become a combined facility.
"What we sat down and looked at with Mr. (George) Wood (county manager) and Mr. Hayes, we have already looked at that," Dunsmore said. "Commissioners do give us additional money, and primarily we have been using that for facilities and upgrades, not necessarily for the students.
"What we have talked about is what savings we would have from that, their hope is that money, we would still get it, but be able to shift that to other maintenance projects rather into that building. They are not looking at taking that back. They are looking at how we can use it with our overall plan to attack some of these other areas."
Meadow Lane's open campus design, while the trend when it was built in 1958, is now the focus of safety and security, particularly because of its location next to the base.
That along with its age make it cost prohibitive to enclose the open layout and renovate the school, Dunsmore said.
The Edgewood facility is even older having been built in 1948 with additions in 1952 and 1974.
If the school is included with Meadow Lane, the county could then sell the Edgewood property, Dunsmore said.
Dunsmore said expanding Fremont STARS to address overcrowding in the county's northern elementary schools is two-fold.
First, the school has the growth space and is attached to water and sewer, he said.
Once the 22 classrooms are added, the district attendance lines for Northwest and Northeast can be adjusted to bring both back under capacity, he said.
Tommy's Road Elementary is also at capacity, he said.
By including that school and managing district attendance lines, future growth can be absorbed, keeping the four elementary schools in the northern part of the county under capacity, Dunsmore said.