EAST SPENCER — A prototype floor plan was chosen Monday for the future consolidated elementary school in the western part of the county.

At the Jan. 11 work session, the Board of Education requested that Thomas Hughes, an architect with sfL+a Architects, bring in two to three prototypes for them to examine. At Monday’s business meeting, Hughes brought eight.

The board examined the prototypes, which ranged from the plan used for Shive, Millbridge and Koontz elementary, to more modern, two-story designs. All of the buildings have flat roofs that would allow for solar panels, Hughes said.

While the board went over the prototypes, they focused their debate on energy efficiency and whether the school would need an auditorium. Superintendent Dr. Lynn Moody advised the board that auditoriums no longer fit in the scheme of a contemporary school.

“It’s not space that you use,” she said.

They are expensive to build, she said — Assistant Superintendent Anthony Vann estimated at least half a million dollars — have inefficient use and are costly to heat and cool.

After some debate, the board moved to adopt a prototype for a modified “X” style floor plan — a more energy efficient version of Shive and Millbridge’s plan. Travis Allen made the motion, Charles “Chuck” Hughes seconded and the motion passed unanimously.

The plan features administrative offices close to classrooms, a combinable space for the dining and multipurpose rooms and two centrally located classrooms that could be transformed into pull-out rooms or science labs.

The plan also allows easy community access to the media center, multipurpose room and dining area during school events.

“It’s really good for the community,” Moody said.

According to the floor plan, all classrooms align north or south to reduce glare from the sun or unwanted solar heat gain, making the building more energy efficient.

Any prototype chosen will not necessarily be the final design of the school, Vann said. Tweaks and changes will be made to suit budget, lay of the land and teacher preference. sfL+a will begin surveying the site on the corner of U.S. Highway 801 and Godbey Road to see how the building would sit on the site.

In the meantime, the board will begin holding community meetings in Cleveland and Woodleaf to get teacher and community input on the design.

Board member Dr. Richard Miller said that while the board was holding discussions for one consolidation, they needed to be thinking about conducting county-wide meetings about future consolidations.

“If we want to get down to 12 elementaries or whatever, that’s the long range, we begin to have this discussion now,” Miller said.

Dean Hunter agreed, and said that the discussions needed to take place sooner rather than later.

“I think we need to be moving forward on that pretty soon,” he said.

The board discussed holding meetings in Cleveland and Woodleaf in mid- to late-February or early March, but Miller urged them to think about a long-range plan for county-wide consolidation discussions.

“That discussion’s got to be going on at the same time,” he said.

Miller handed out talking points for school consolidation so that the board could “be on the same page.” After some discussion, the board decided to see how talks went in Cleveland in Woodleaf, and then expand talks to the rest of the county when more information on future consolidations becomes available.

Community discussions in Cleveland and Woodleaf are expected to begin in early March. The board will choose dates at its Feb. 8 work session.

In other business:

• The board agreed to begin advertising for sealed bids in April for the school system’s Long Street administrative building. Bids will be accepted in May. In that time, the board will leave all unwanted furniture and sell the building as is.

• In a closed session the board discussed amending a December appropriation of funds. In open session Susan Cox moved to amend a prior appropriation of $120,000 for two behavioral specialists at Koontz Elementary and to instead use whatever portion of funds appropriate for salary to hire a co-rincipal at Koontz.

• The board approved a contract with School Efficiency Consultants to conduct an efficiency study in Rowan-Salisbury Schools.