The School Board has its work cut out for it | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    The Beaufort County Board of Commissioners heard a report at their regular monthly meeting on May 6, 2013 that was a devastating indictment of the poor planning the former Superintendent (Jeff Moss), the previous School Board, the former County Manager (Paul Spruill) and the Gang of Five (Jerry Langley, Robert Cayton, Ed Booth, Jay McRoy and Al Klemm) have wrecked on the taxpayers of Beaufort County and the school children for a generation.

    Essentially what the report documents is that as much as $20 million of school construction from the $39.6 million bond construction program was built in the wrong place and too little was spent on schools that should have had more construction than was done at those schools.

    For example, the study documents that the growth that has been taking place and is likely to continue is concentrated in Chocowinity, while the student population in the eastern sections of the county, both north and south of the river, are declining. As a result, the former school board spent five million dollars on a school that today is less than 50% utilized and with no hope of ever being fully utilized. Yet they spent "only" $2.2 million at Chocowinity Primary, where most of the growth in the county is and will be, according to this study.

    Worse still, the former school board spent $27 million to maintain a wasteful cross-town busing pattern in the Washington Attendance Area, putting two big new schools (Jones and Small) exactly where they did not need to be and leaving the western section of the attendance area shortchanged, while spending $4.5 million at Bath when they could have shifted grades or attendance boundaries and cut that expenditure substantially, if not completely out.

    What the report from the experts shows can be simply stated. The former superintendent and school board did a terrible job of facilities planning. And the Gang of Five went along with it every step of the way with a 5-2 vote, contending that the Board of Commissioners should just do what the school board wanted to do. What the current superintendent and school board are faced with is excess capacity where they don't need it and overcrowding in other areas.

    You can hear the report in the video clips below:



    The first clip is Part I which focuses on the overall county-wide population trends.



    The second clip is Part II and focuses on the utilization of each school campus.

    Click here to review the chart showing the "out of capacity" numbers for each school.

    Click here to review the report itself.

    Commentary

    Beaufort County has a mess on its hands. The county spent $40 million on school facilities and wasted much of it building classrooms where there are insufficient students to fill them and not building enough were the population is growing.

    This poor planning was the fault of the former superintendent (Jeff Moss) and the previous school board, led by Bryant Hardison and Robert Belcher. Their foolish mistakes were rubber-stamped by the Gang of Five Commissioners. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. The NC State study confirms that the population shifts will mean the problem gets worse, not better.

    But fortunately we have new leadership on the school board and an excellent superintendent. The question then becomes: Are they going to change "business as usual" and begin to pull us out of this hole or are they going to make it worse?

    There are indications that the current superintendent and school board understand the problem. There is not, as of yet, an indication that they have a plan that will, over time, address the problem. The encouraging sign is that they have now done the data collections and analysis that should have been done before the $33 million bond issue was voted on.

    Only time will tell if this school board comes up with a sensible plan and begins to implement it. But if they don't there are developments in Raleigh that will portend corrective measures. S 236 is working its way through the General Assembly. It has passed the Senate and now is in the House. Essentially what it provides for is that the County Commissioners can take over school facilities ownership, planning and management if they determine the school board is not going to do its job.

    In conversations with some commissioners, none of them is anxious to exercise the power S 236 would give them if it passes. But they indicate that it is a "fall-back position" if the school board does not come up with a plan to address the facilities issues in Beaufort County.

    What is going to be needed is for the school board to develop a plan that produces more efficient facility utilization than it now has. There is too much wasted space at some schools. But unfortunately that space is nowhere near where it needs to be. The temptation will be for the board to piecemeal the issue. That is, to look at solving pieces of the problem, rather than develop a comprehensive approach.

    We have hope that the new leadership on the school board and the current superintendent will not repeat the mistakes of the past but will come up with a data-based plan that is based on broad-based community participation. The problem can be fixed, but it is not likely to be fixed in such a way that makes everybody happy.

    The school board has an opportunity to do it themselves, but is they don't then S 326 will be there to provide a mechanism for getting the tough decisions made, if it becomes law.

    Stay tuned. We'll keep you informed as things develop.