NEW Breaking News from Stanly County
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Ok 1 you are talking integration of blacks and whites into the same schools which is totally different from consolidations of today. 2 wouldnt the modern day segregation be these public charter schools?
Since it seems that NC is a front runner atleast to my knowledge on consolidations please tell me a couple of success stories? Where 1 in turned out to be a dramatic financial benefit and 2 academically there was a dramatic increase academically.
I have no idea if NC has more consolidation than most other states. If so I would think that may be attributed to the lower funding NC provides to their schools as compared to other states.
The Washington County school having an enrollment of just over 100 students is a very small school with limited offerings. Since 2004 the enrollment has ranged from 77-165. No idea why the variance of over 50% but I would think Hispanic students and transient farm workers has something to do with it but that is total speculation. I am going to see if I can get more info on that. The head football coach, Wayne Rodgers has been in that position since 1986.
The Washington County school having an enrollment of just over 100 students is a very small school with limited offerings. Since 2004 the enrollment has ranged from 77-165. No idea why the variance of over 50% but I would think Hispanic students and transient farm workers has something to do with it but that is total speculation. I am going to see if I can get more info on that. The head football coach, Wayne Rodgers has been in that position since 1986.
I read an article that was very interesting about consolidation and mergers into a 1 county system. The article was about Wake county schools as the success story and discussed a state in which did a statewide consolidation, which was Maine. Interesting enough the article never exposed what the academic benefits were but stated that's difficult to track. Additionally in Maine who did a statewide consolidation and merger did save around 5% on their budget but that was all at the administration level it did not save anything at the school level.
Wake county essentially combined Raleigh City and wake county schools in order to balance low income families and higher income families and essentially every 3 years your kids could go to a different school. The goal there is to keep less than 40% of subsidized lunches in the school.
Btango you may know more about this in Wake County than I do but the article is an interesting read. It's meant to be a success story for consolidation and merger but if anything from the article it validates my points of no real savings and no academic gains.
The consolidation of the the two systems you note are not a school. That is equal to Stanly County and Albemarle City Schools combining nearly 20 years ago.
Wake County has 21 high schools and over 160,000 with two additional ones to open for the 2017-18 school year. Enrollments range from 1,800 to over 2,800. Wake County wanted to keep the enrollments as close to 1,800 per school as possible but I have been told that number is now 2,000. They have used magnet schools in some of their lowest performing schools to help drive the academics and diversity. Enloe is an example of this. The districting is much like political districting that helps diversify the schools as much as they can.
There are examples of consolidation improving academics and budgets. There have not been a large amount of consolidations since the 1970's although some have taken place since. I would say that Robeson County and Beaufort County are examples of what the locals consider successful based on friends in Robeson County and spending time in Beaufort County last year. The issue in those counties were extremely small high schools and geogrpahy in Beaufort County. Hard to compare systems in Maine or even schools in Beaufort County to Stanly County.
Back in the 1960's and early 1970's, many schools across the South integrated and consolidated at the same time. Overall, this was very successful although other "studies" indicated that such a thing would not be successful. In addition, you have mentioned "community schools" several times. That was one of the major arguments against integration back during this time. Many thought that integration would hurt the economy beyond repair. That never did occur. Since integration, we've seen North Carolina's population increase from 4 million to 10 million people. Only a handful of states have seen such an increase of population. The NC economy is better now in comparison with the nation than it was before integration, too.
Most of the recent consolidations over the past 30 years have been in Eastern NC. Robeson County went through three or four consolidations from the early 1980's to 1990. Some of the former high schools did not even have classes such as Advanced Math, Chemistry, and Physics. With the new high schools, there were enough kids to offer such classes.
Martin County's consolidation five years ago has been tremendously successful. The kids now have more classes that they can take that will properly prepare them for either a vocation or for college. The same holds true when Northampton-East and Northampton West consolidated a few years ago. Back in 1981, when Northampton-East and Northampton-West were created, there were several smaller high schools that offered little college preparatory classes. Things are much brighter now in Northampton and Martin County since consolidation.
Look at Beaufort NC. In the 1980's, besides Washington HS, you had Pantego, Wilkinson (Belhaven), Bath, Chocowinity, and Aurora. These schools offered little preparation for kids to attend college. These schools consolidated to form Northside and Southside in 1989. Subsequently, we saw more kids going to college as a result.
All of these consolidations helped academics and was cost efficient in the long run. As far as the economy, the old education structures wasn't helping commerce whatsoever. In fact, it dragged the economy down.
Again, when reading these studies, it's important to find out who sponsored these studies and why these studies were done in the first place. With any consolidation, there will be some cons with it, specifically travel. However, we should not discount the positives from consolidation.
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Creswell's fluctuation has several variable involved, mostly with more middle-income families pulling their kids to academies and to religious-affiliated schools. The entire campus contains kids from K-12 too (although in separate buildings). Creswell HS does nothing whatsoever for the local economy, and in fact is a prime example of why consolidation needs to occur. The same holds true with Plymouth where you are seeing white flight every year. Plymouth had over 660 kids in 1997 and now the enrollment is around 325. There are simply not enough resources to fully fund these two high schools.
Once again define success? If these were as successful as stated it would be hard to believe that NC would be ranked 48th in the nation. Additionally I have been to Pantego and Beaufort and there is absolutely nothing there when I was there about 2-3 years ago.
In my eyes when you speak of consolidation bettering academics you better be talking of increasing one letter grade within 5-10 years.
The geographical barriers would have to be huge to have a high school with only 100 students.
Success comes in many different ways. Look at how we have lowered our dropout rate over the past 20 years. We have seen a decrease in the dropout rate whereby our graduation rate is better than the nation's rate. We have also seen a continual decrease in the "achievement gap" between the various races. Our school systems offer more and more college preparatory classes now than ever before. We also give the kids a chance to learn vocational schools so if they choose not to go to college, they have somewhere else to go.
Pantego and Belhaven is very rural, and truthfully there are little to do in that area. Most will head to Plymouth or Washington weekly for commerce. However, the school system is much better now than ever before. That area is very isolated, and as such there are few industries that would fit geographically in that area.
Getting back to the increase of graduation rates: this is very important this day and age. The high school dropout simply can't go to the textile mills and get a job like they could 30 years ago. The furniture jobs are disappearing too. As such, getting that high school diploma in now a necessity where in previous generations, that was simply not the case.
I totally agree. This area is surrounded by bodies of water. Some of the old industry that used the rivers have vanished to other areas in the world much like other areas across the state.
NAFTA probably hurt our state as much as any state in the nation. NAFTA wasn't about schools either, but instead about lowering costs and finding cheaper labor.
When you reference a rank fo 48th in the nation for NC what is that from or based on? Is NC 48th in test scores or some other form? I know NC is about that in some form of dollars per students.
NAFTA destroyed mill towns across our state. There is no debating that.
Merger of school systems are often viewed as a budgetary advantage. The Lexington City Council commissioned a study eight years ago, hoping to prove that merger of the county system with the two city systems would save significant money. What it found instead is that the two city systems would lose a total of $16 million per year in federal money. Additionally, countywide, a merged system would be required to raise per pupil spending to the level of the highest of the three systems...Lexington. With that in mind, the cost of a new school is a bargain. At the time, Davidson County was dead last of all 100 counties in per pupil spending. I suspect that hasn't changed.
Much of the overcrowding is a result of many years of High Point annexing across county lines into Davidson County. High Point received the advantages of new subdivisions, and Davidson County taxpayers had to foot the bill for education. It took a local legislative bill to stop the practice. Now, the Davidson County commissioners have to approve any annexation.
It is speculation whether a merger of the three systems would enhance academics within Davidson County. But, I can tell you that financially, it's not going to happen.
OK here we go with the public hearings on the closurer of schools in SC. There will be one for each school to be closed in the month of Jan. They really seem to be rushing things. I think they want o try and put Plan B into effect as soon as possible. If they do this is what I think will happen. According to the local paper today the NAACP is set and primed to take the school board to court for racial discrimation. With the closurer of community schools I think the sales tax ear marked for schools has NO chance of passing. From what I read in the SNAP AHS has been discrimated against big time with lack of funding, teachers and the list goes on. Rest of the month should be interesting.
I just wish someone would make a decision one way or the other, i meen damn there has been like 10 threads and 5000 posts about this topic for 2 yrs and still at square one. Millions of posts for no reason, and people keep giving suggestions on here like the boe is reading these threads.
You just pulled the premptive race card. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton aren't the only voices in the black community. There are many black leaders who work behind the scenes finding viable solutions to these problems.
No, Albemarle is not an "all black" school. The last time we had a segregated school that was "all black" in Albemarle was when Kingville existed.
I believe the ratio is 40% black and 40% white and the rest other minorities.
We have watched all 4 Schools get nice Field Houses built. North has a nice Weight Room and now a Visitor's Field House. Being balanced like Buddy added has got to make Bulldog Fans proud
West Stanly built their fieldhouse in the late 1970's mostly with volunteers and monetary contributions. The baseball facility was built almost strictly with money raised by the then head coach and volunteers.
I was told that AHS was required to build additional dressing facilities due to Title 9 concerns which sensibly became a field house.
I always point to the fact that AHS does not have tennis courts or baseball/softball fields on campus but that is another story or actually a few of them.
AHS seems to lag way behind in athletic facilities except the football stadium and the staff does a great job with the field itself although the stands and entry could use some TLC.
I was told that AHS was required to build additional dressing facilities due to Title 9 concerns which sensibly became a field house.
I always point to the fact that AHS does not have tennis courts or baseball/softball fields on campus but that is another story or actually a few of them.
AHS seems to lag way behind in athletic facilities except the football stadium and the staff does a great job with the field itself although the stands and entry could use some TLC.
Almost 60% of the lottery money has been going to teachers and assistants. Starting in 2016 that money will now go to school support personnel. Bus drivers, janitors etc. smh.
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