I don't know the answer but I assume it's the same combination of factors that caused a decline in the FB team's fortunes. Shrinking population, redrawn district boundaries, local private schools are taking away good teachers ($$), North Stanly's star is on the rise after a generation or two playing second fiddle and is the more attractive option for some people right now. Such is life but the people in charge owe it to the kids at AHS to make sure they're getting a quality experience. I continue to believe consolidation is the right move but I haven't followed the debate.
Unfortunately, "consolidation" is a four-letter word in Stanly County. When it was simply considered a few years ago (no firm decisions) people started calling for the heads of the school board members who supported it. The result? Those members decided that another term wasn't worth the hassle and didn't run for re-election.
Stanly County's four public high schools have been in place now for 60 years. Yet, despite the fact that the western end of the county is growing leaps and bounds as Charlotte expands eastward; and towns in the east like Albemarle and Badin have shrunk due to loss of industry, the district lines are still the same as they were in 1962. An effort was made a few years ago to re-draw the district lines in order to even out the high school enrollments, but as it seems with any new or progressive idea here, it was rescinded after one year by the "we've always done it this way" board members who took the place of the ones who supported consolidation.
Arguably, Albemarle High has suffered the most from all this. With the current board allowing students to transfer at will between high schools, Albemarle has seen its student numbers dwindle. If I'm not mistaken, AHS only graduates 80-85 students a year. I have friends who graduated from there in the early 2000's with senior classes of 150 to 170.
The elephant in the room that no one wants to mention is race. West Stanly has very few minority students, North and South have average numbers, but Albemarle is probably close to 75% minority. One of the reasons many people fought redistricting which would have seen their children transferred into Albemarle was "we don't want our kids going to school with the Amherst (subsidized public housing project) kids at AHS."
By refusing to address this issue and even out high school enrollment as much as possible, the Stanly County School Board has caused two serious problems, both of which hurts the students more than anyone else:
1) They have, through their inaction, re-segregated the county schools to a degree
and
2) Also through their inaction, the schools have become "haves" and "have nots". For example, because of AHS and SSHS's low enrollment numbers, many advanced courses cannot be taught there. So students who wish to take these courses have to drive to North or West during the school day to get these classes, (Yes, virtual learning/distance learning is possible, but we saw how well that went during Covid).
Until Stanly County's culture gets into the 21st century, and until it elects leaders who will embrace change rather than fight it, the students are going to suffer.
