Winding down seven months of meetings — often heated, other times downright dull — a group appointed by the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education is prepared to recommend a redistricting plan for high schools.
Similar to what the group has negotiated in recent weeks, the plan grants students now at the newly opened Southeast Middle School a choice of where to attend.
The committee, originally with 21 members but with only about 15 showing up in recent weeks, appeared to unanimously support a document Tuesday night.
Advocates of Salisbury High School say it will give the school a chance to market itself to boost sagging attendance there. Defenders of the overcrowded West Rowan High School say it gives families a choice and more time to prepare for changes.
And if the so-called “choice zone” doesn’t change enrollments in three years, students in some areas will be forced to transfer.
“It will be great if it works,” said Laura Thompson, who has two children at Salisbury High. Asked if she thought it would, she replied: “I’m hopeful.”
“I think a lot of misconceptions (about Salisbury High) came out during this period and were corrected,” parent Henrietta Henderlite said.
Committee members Rick Parker, Lorna Medinger and Bryce Beard will present the document to school board members at their next meeting on Feb. 12. Though the school board must give the plan a final nod, that act may largely be symbolic, since school board members have attended every meeting of the committee and often spoken the most.
Parker — one of many who has opposed forcing students to leave West Rowan High for Salisbury High — likes the plan.
“What we were after for the west district was a win-win situation,” he said.“... We want to provide a soft landing rather than force this thing down people’s throats.”
Beard, who fought proposals to turn Salisbury High into administrative offices for the school system, agreed that instant, forced reassignments aren’t the best route.
“You’re not going to go into a community and throw a lasso around a hundred people,” he said. “That’s not going to help either one of us.”
If approved, 185 eighth-graders at Southeast Middle could choose this spring between Salisbury High or the high school in the district in which they live — West, South or East. Students could ride a bus to Salisbury or the school in their district.
Jim Christy, the school system’s transportation director, said he couldn’t estimate the cost of overlapping bus routes until he knew how many students want to attend Salisbury out of district.
“Anything we do would be a guess right now,” he said.
If Salisbury High still remains below 85 percent capacity in January 2003, students living in the following areas would be automatically reassigned to Salisbury High that year:
- Subdivisions along N.C. 150, including Summerfield, Windmill Ridge, Glen Heather, Hidden Hut, Homestead Hills and adjoining neighborhoods.
- An area including Julian Road to the north, Old Concord Road to the east, Peach Orchard Road to the south and Interstate 85.
The committee also will recommend that the school system begin better policing transfers — now largely unenforced, Beard said.
“There are students moving from one school to another just by giving an address,” he said. “If you’re going to do all this (redistricting), then you need to put some teeth in it.”
Scooting chairs out from tables, one could hear the collective sigh of relief among committee members over a throng of parents clapping hands.
But while the committee’s work is now done, the school board now has the weighty task of marketing a bond referendum this November to fund a sixth high school and more elementary schools.
Meanwhile Salisbury High supporters have some marketing of their own to do. With 744 students now enrolled, the school is 85 students shy of the goal of 85 percent capacity.
With aggressive academic programs, new baseball and football coaches and plans this year for renovated athletic fields, Medinger is optimistic that Salisbury High can turn its low enrollment around. The school has no baseball field and can’t have a home track meet because the track doesn’t meet regulations.
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