School board works to finalize Edgewood's classroom number
By Steve Herring
Published in News on March 28, 2017 9:39 AM
The Wayne County Board of Education continues to look at its plans for a new Edgewood Community Development School to ensure that it will be able to meet the needs of the community's special needs children.
The new Edgewood school will be a wing of the new Meadow Lane Elementary School to be built on Ash Street. Groundbreaking for the construction project is scheduled to be held in June.
Commissioners last week took the next step toward a $42 million bond sale that includes $20 million for the new Meadow Lane and its Edgewood wing.
"Along with that project is the Edgewood project," Schools Superintendent Dr. Michael Dunsmore said. "The one thing that we haven't finalized is the exact number of classrooms. There are two reasons for that. We are doing surveys within the Air Force and other communities to try to get an idea of the number of children that meet that developmental day criteria that would be coming into that program.
"We obviously don't want to build and be overcrowded the day that we open."
School officials visited a similar school in Guilford County, Dunsmore said.
That school was full when it opened, and Guilford County has since built a second such school, he said.
"And they knew there was about a 30 percent increase in the number of people moving in (the county) just because of that program," Dunsmore said. "We are only one of 11, I believe, in the state of North Carolina that have developmental day programs for special needs children. So if you are a parent for one of these kids, you are going to move where there are programs."
People from California moved to Guilford County because of the program, he said.
"With the military base right here, one of my concerns that I have been working with them and trying to get some information," he said. "Even if you are retired after 20 years, and still have school-age children it would behoove you to retire and move to Wayne County because of those educational services.
"So we just want to make sure that we get the number of classrooms right moving forward with that."