Heard the grant for this consolidation plan was not approved. Looks like this consolidation will not happen anytime soon.
Murphy-Andrews- Hiawasse Dam Consolidation
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Good. I hate seeing schools consolidate. Just look what happened to the Plymouth program after they consolidated.
Good news. Consolidations rarely have big benifits. I know from my 33 years in education. KEEP the small community 1A schools and avoid losing identities like Ashe County, who lost those great small community schools of Beaver Creek, NW Ashe, and Ashe Central....all for progress.
It's not cost effective for small counties like Ashe to have 3 high schools. If the General Assembly would stop handcuffing public school it wouldn't be an issue but much of consolidation is due to budget constraints. It's cheaper to pay 1 principal and 2-4 APs than 3 principals and 3 APs, 1 AD as opposed to 3, 1 head football coach as opposed to 3, etc. It's cheaper to maintain 1 building as opposed to 3.
So I understand why counties consolidate, and sadly it will be a trend in small counties until something is done in Raleigh
So I understand why counties consolidate, and sadly it will be a trend in small counties until something is done in Raleigh
If no consolidation, that's fine. BUT something must be done with Murphy High School infrastructure. It's basically rottening down around the kids as we speak.
That's happening in far too many places. Some of the conditions of some of our school buildings in the state, especially in low income and rural areas is absolutely ridiculous.
I think there will still be consolidation in Cherokee County, but not sure what it will look like now or how long it will take. With the Charter school expanding, the EC getting a new facility, the number of people that are turning to homeschooling, and there not being a whole lot of housing for working class people with kids, I would be surprised if enrollment doesn't keep trending down for the traditional schools in Cherokee County. But over the last two years I've sensed a shift in a lot of people to where they still don't like this consolidation plan (the location being a mile from the county line, etc.) but are coming around to the concept of consolidation in general. Although I think most people would prefer it to be done at the elementary school level first (6 is a crazy number of elementary schools in a county this size). And I think most people in Andrews and HD would much prefer to consolidate down to two high schools.
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Yep and as you know it's been like that a LONG time already. And thanks to the payouts from the DSS mess the county will be broke for years to come, so the only way it will be done is with future grant opportunities. I couldn't justify my child going to Murphy High if it's still like that by the time he's high school age, no way. There are people now that just send their kid(s) down to Union and who could blame them. The difference between Cherokee County school infrastructure and surrounding counties like Clay and Union is so stark, it is beyond embarrassing.
It was more than that. A really toxic political situation brought that program down.
Possibly. But it may not be at the high school level. If it is, I would think their is a possibility that Andrews still stays and HD and Murphy consolidate. Who knows at this point
So thankful Robbinsville got a new High School in the 90s.. It's still in excellent excellent condition. Now construction is up and going for the new middle school located on the high school campus
Hayesville also getting a new middle school from the same grant cycle that Cherokee Co. got denied in. Cherokee Co. facilities are worse and Cherokee County is Tier 1 (vs. Tier 2 for Clay). Will be interesting what the debriefing of why Cherokee Co. didn't get the grant says.
When a high school starts getting in the lower numbers it is hard to provide the programs needed or wanted unless you have a student body that is not very diverse educationally or socially. Early colleges are smaller in size but the student is working on a tighter set of academic needs. Those students leaving make it harder for the student that stays at their small, local school.
A few years ago I worked with a student in Stanly County that was a UNC Morehead Scholarship recipient. She went to Albemarle HS, her home district school, and signed in for the day. I think she may have had one class there but the others were at North Stanly (five miles on a four lane road from AHS) and West Stanly (12 miles opposite direction). Ridiculous. Four district schools. Two early colleges (community college and a new one at AHS that has not brought in the students but just kept them from losing some), an online high school (which seems to be the new thing), and a high school for troubled youth (may be 50 students). One issue with Albemarle they seemed to let students go to the other three with little question which partly sapped the enrollment.
A few years ago I worked with a student in Stanly County that was a UNC Morehead Scholarship recipient. She went to Albemarle HS, her home district school, and signed in for the day. I think she may have had one class there but the others were at North Stanly (five miles on a four lane road from AHS) and West Stanly (12 miles opposite direction). Ridiculous. Four district schools. Two early colleges (community college and a new one at AHS that has not brought in the students but just kept them from losing some), an online high school (which seems to be the new thing), and a high school for troubled youth (may be 50 students). One issue with Albemarle they seemed to let students go to the other three with little question which partly sapped the enrollment.
I guess whoever represents Cherokee County doesn't do enough sucking up in Raleigh.
This is a failure on the state.
I really want to know where all the lottery money goes.
I also think we should note that the general assembly keeps lowering and lowering the corporate tax rate. Support it all you want but there isn't a bit of incentive in this for counties in which business and industry don't thrive. Our schools should not be in the shape they are in.
This is a failure on the state.
I really want to know where all the lottery money goes.
I also think we should note that the general assembly keeps lowering and lowering the corporate tax rate. Support it all you want but there isn't a bit of incentive in this for counties in which business and industry don't thrive. Our schools should not be in the shape they are in.
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I've heard speculation and if it were true the reason would appear to lie at the feet of certain individuals in positions of power within the county. Again IF what was suggested is actually true, truly petty and disgusting behavior.
The lottery proceeds flow through 3 different funds: 1st - the State lottery fund (operating expenses, prizes, etc.); 2nd- Education lottery fund (profit from the State fund - this is where the GA appropriates money to educational programs); 3rd - Ed. lottery reserve (funds to cover any shortfall between lottery proceeds and appropriations).
Well, slight amendment to that…charter school relinquishing its charter and closing. So they won’t be taking students from the traditional high schools. Wonder if another will pop up.
Shocker. So same situation as the one in Wilkes County then probably. Starting to see a trend here. Maybe people will wake up eventually and see what is really happening here
There are many ways that Charters decide to dissolve. Its almost always Financial, massive failure of EC Dept or low enrollment.
Well yes but I was asking about specifics which looks like misappropriation of funds. One day people will realize the dirty game of allowing money to control.
Well, a NC Court of Appeals decision last month will open the door to municipalities operating their own charter schools. Not sure if that will be better or worse than corporate-run ones, but I imagine it signals that charter schools aren't going anywhere in NC.
They're definitely not going anywhere.
All that does is open the door for resegregating schools. I mean look at the municipalities that were on the lawsuit. Weren't all 3 more affluent areas of Charlotte if my memory serves me correct?
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The lawsuit was the NAACP and some parents vs. the State, so no municipalities were on the lawsuit, but the bill they were suing the State to try and stop allows Matthews, Mint Hill, Cornelius, and Huntersville to apply to get to run municipal charter schools. The whole thing was a local bill that was basically a standoff over CMS' student assignment/magnet lottery plans (i.e. "you want to make it harder for our kids to win the magnet lotteries? Fine, we'll open our own schools"), so who knows if those towns will ever try and open them now that CMS backed away from their plans some. But that also does kind of tell you what this is all about. The Court of Appeals case didn't really get to whether the bill was constitutional, just basically said there was no standing to get into court since none of the towns had actually tried to open one. It may have already served its purpose of giving the rich suburban towns leverage against CMS and no municipal charters ever open. I guess time will tell. Would be interesting to see small rural towns try and use the concept to try and fight off unwanted consolidations, though.
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That's the 4 that I thought were involved on the intial bill. I'll be curious to see if any of them attempt to open a school. I'd say Mint Hill and Matthews would be the 2 I would watch out of that.
I know there are 2 towns in Surry County that would use that in the even the county tried to absorb their systems.
I know there are 2 towns in Surry County that would use that in the even the county tried to absorb their systems.
Cornelius. Why does that ring a bell? Oh yeah. Senator Tillis lives there. I wouldn’t be so sure that they won’t open the schools.
One thing we are seeing is students leaving a school when it does not offer the academic options they want or need. Early colleges and charter schools have cut into traditional school student populations. As school start to drop into the smaller numbers it is hard to offer the classes that may be available in a larger school.
I was told by a very sharp administrator years ago that as schools start to drop below about 800 high school students the offerings will diminish unless the student body is very much the same academically and socially. In other words you can have a school of 200 when all the students are in the same type of program, ie IB, Early College, EC, technology. This is where the magnet programs came into play for niche programs in some of the larger school districts and where some smaller districts tried to keep the ADM up at schools that were losing district students.
I was told by a very sharp administrator years ago that as schools start to drop below about 800 high school students the offerings will diminish unless the student body is very much the same academically and socially. In other words you can have a school of 200 when all the students are in the same type of program, ie IB, Early College, EC, technology. This is where the magnet programs came into play for niche programs in some of the larger school districts and where some smaller districts tried to keep the ADM up at schools that were losing district students.
Alot of kids that leave to go to charter schools don't leave because of academic options. Look at where the heaviest concentration of charter schools are.
The Early College in Murphy has absolutely cut into Murphy and Andrews' enrollment, and that's with it being basically some trailers behind the community college. It's now getting a nice new facility, which I'm sure will lead it to cut into traditional schools' enrollment some more. I understood the benefit 15-20 years ago when ECs first started popping up and it wasn't as easy to do college-level classes remotely, etc. But now it seems like even a good percentage of the kids graduating the traditional schools are also leaving with an Associates...so am I missing the necessity of a separate EC program at this point?
In Cherokee County, though, you also have to deal with the proximity to Georgia. The schools there are well funded, have great facilities, and seem to have a high level of public trust. And I don't have stats to back it up, but anecdotally there seems to have been a huge uptick in homeschooling the last few years in Cherokee County.
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