SALISBURY — The Rowan-Salisbury School Board of Education convened for its annual retreat on Monday.

The full-day event covered several topics, but one of import was a proposal to modify the current situation at North Middle School which is pushing its capacity to an unsustainable level.

North Rowan Middle School Principal Jonathan Clark presented the plans that a committee his school assembled had discussed.

Currently, North Rowan Middle School at this time is at about 87.5 percent of capacity. The building capacity is listed at 805 and the current enrollment is 705.

“It’s different than our other two schools in our community,” Clark said.

North Rowan Elementary School’s current enrollment of 412 is only 66 percent of its 625 capacity. North Rowan High School’s current enrollment of 556 is only 51 percent of its 1,100 capacity.

When Knox Middle School was torn down to make way for a new 3rd-8th grade facility, the students there were dispersed across multiple schools: West Rowan (42), Southeast (38), Erwin (36) and North Rowan (15). There are currently about 140 students in 8th grade at North that were originally designated to attend.

However, the remaining students that would be at Knox right now prior to the demolition are at North. In the 7th grade, 110 formerly Knox students are joined with 168 North students. In the 6th grade, 112 Knox students are joined with 171 North students.

Next year, expected rising 6th graders, include 112 students that would formerly have gone to Knox, will join an expecting incoming class of 175 North students.

“There are a lot of kids and we are running out of space,” Clark said.

Clark indicated that they engaged stakeholders to form a committee of parents and staff from the North Rowan community schools.

“We met and discussed different options of what it could look like to be able to not disrupt the students that are moving from Knox and have been coming through North Middle and be able to house them in a way that still makes sense,” Clark said.

We looked at different options, its more pros and cons and then the team came up with a recommendation.

“One option that we discussed was a sixth grade dispersal overall,” Clark said. “All North and Knox students that are in fifth grade would remain in their feeder elementary schools. The pros of that are: they are in a school they know, they are familiar with the environment and the transportation is already in place.”

Cons to that plan include impact to feeder schools that would be impacted by having a sixth grade at their school as well.

“It’s late in the season so you would also be disrupting what many students look forward to as a benchmark, transitioning from fifth grade to sixth grade,” Clark said. “Access to athletics would be impacted as well with the large age gap between pre-K kids and your sixth graders.”

The second option was just looking at the North Rowan Middle School feeders.

“So, as you saw on the former slide, there are about 170 kids anticipating transitioning to North Middle from just the North Middle feeders,” Clark said. “So what if you left those students in their feeder schools and just accepted the Knox sixth grade class and maintained our current sixth grade and seventh grade classes? Capacity is still a little tight there.”

Clark indicated that the same pros exist for that plan as far as community and transportation.

“But then you have some of the breaking of connections,” Clark said. “One major point, as explained by my parents, in the North community, why would we be set apart in a way that is completely different than every other place in the county?”

The third option is to take advantage of the open space at North Rowan High School and move eighth graders from North Middle and accept the full Knox sixth and seventh grade there.

“That would involve keeping our current sixth grade as well as accepting the incoming class from Knox,” Clark said. “There are more pros to this option. There are more community connections. We would be utilizing a currently under utilized facility. Those students would be close in proximity to the middle school so they could still participate in athletics.”

Other pros to that plan include not breaking feeder patterns that currently exist and the potential to increase North Rowan High School enrollment, which currently has the lowest enrollment in the county.

“The con that was presented is that 8th grade students would be housed with high schoolers,” Clark said.

Clark indicated that they looked at all the different options and talked about different pieces that would impact decision making.

“Looking at logistics as far as bussing, North Rowan already has bussing that runs into all the communities served,” Clark said. “So you utilize those busses to continue accepting students.”

Clark pointed out that separation is possible at North Rowan High School as well.

“Being the way that it is constructed, the newest wing is pretty much separated from the rest of the school so that you could house 8th grade class there,” he said. “You could run an alternate bell schedule and start time. That would help eliminate some of the hesitancy as far as having 8th grades with a high school and still maintaining a middle school bell schedule.”

However, the biggest piece, as noted by Clark, is looking at increased collaboration between middle school and high school.

“With those three schools (North Elementary, North Middle and North High) being in such close proximity, the ultimate vision would be a lot more collaboration and working together among the three campuses,” Clark said.

The committee recommended Option 3.

School board member Dr. Rebecca Childs called Clark’s efforts to convene a group of community stakeholders commendable and she then asked about the students from Knox that attend North in 8th grade.

“Would they go back to Salisbury High after 8th grade?” Childs said. “We want to make sure we don’t hurt our high schools as we are helping our middle schools.”

Clark said that the plan would not disrupt current feeder patterns and that they would honor any transfer requests made within the parameters of district policy.

School board member Kevin Jones suggested that the change could force students to have to make that decision.

“I’m sure there will be pushback from the Salisbury community, because that would be a challenge to say you are now at your third school in three years, (North Middle, North High to Salisbury),” Jones said.

Clark explained that it is better to think about this move as a satellite campus of North Middle School.

“In some cases, you would think to add trailers, but the way the high school in this scenario is functioning, it is almost like a satellite campus rather than spending the money on trailers that would be needed for a year,” Clark said. “We are using an existing building to house those students. So while they are at the high school, it is not fully integrated into the high school. I could see where there might be some situations where students choose to stay.”

Superintendent Dr. Kelly Withers added, “You are looking at North High that is currently at 557 students; 50 percent of the building capacity. We already have an open enrollment at North. People can transfer in if they choose to do so from any of our high schools. This will present a new piece to that because they will have already spent time in that high school and may decide that I want to stay on.”

Withers said that doing so would “positively impact the learning community” at North Rowan. By increasing student enrollment, it would enhance elective offerings and staffing opportunities.

While no vote was taken on the matter at the retreat, school board member Jimmy Greene asked about a timeline.

“The bottom line is this,” Withers said. “We cannot go to North Rowan Middle next year and continue doing what we are doing. We don’t have the space to do so. If this is the host option we choose to go with, we would start informing families immediately.”

Board members signaled an intent to have the item on the next meeting agenda.