— by Jeff Jenkins, WIZS

Anyone in Vance County who has read the Daily Dispatch or listened to WIZS for the past three weeks already knows that the Vance County School Board is considering a proposal from Superintendent Anthony Jackson to consolidate the County’s two Middle Schools and two High Schools into one Middle School and one High School. When they received Dr. Jackson’s detailed proposal, the School Board immediately called for public reaction to the possible consolidation and set up a number of community gatherings for the public to express their support or opposition, questions and concerns.  In addition to these meetings, citizens have been encouraged to e-mail feedback directly to central office.

WIZS has been discussing this issue – on the air during Sports Mayhem with Kemp Collins and on Town Talk – ever since the news broke on January 9, and WIZS news staff have attended some of the meetings and corresponded with the VCS central office.  Some of what we found out is included in the posting on our website dated January 30 (click here); but what has the public been saying?  Here is a brief summary of what we at WIZS have seen, heard and been told over the past three weeks:

Transportation, or “busing” of students — At the public gatherings, the VCS staff members have pointed out that, because of the small size of our county, and the fact that the two middle schools and two high schools are already lie within about 3 miles of each other, no middle or high school student would have travel more than a mile or two farther than he or she already does.

Teachers or staff losing their jobs — Even people who favor the consolidation in general are concerned about staff cutbacks, which seems logical, if there are two schools instead of four.  But Dr. Jackson and his staff have made it clear that one of the reasons for recommending these big changes is that positions have been cut every year anyway, and that they have to recruit teachers every year to fill vacancies. They therefore expect that the 44 middle and high school positions to be cut as a result of consolidation would result in reassignment of duties, rather than layoffs of individual employees.

WHICH schools will be left vacant and which ones will house the “new” consolidated schools — VCS seems pretty far from deciding that.  Dr. Jackson has shown each of the public gatherings calculations based on all the possible options, and how much money would be saved in each scenario.  In terms of size, Henderson Middle School, with a room for 819 students, would come closest to accommodating the 826 estimated middle school students, without expansion of mobile classrooms, while Southern Vance’s 1475-student capacity could best handle the estimated 1329 high schoolers.

What do Dr. Jackson and the Board mean when they say that “all the money saved through consolidation would be put right back into the schools . . .” — Part of Dr. Jackson’s presentation at the public gatherings has included a sample “repurpose budget” for the $2.4 million per year expected to be saved by consolidation.  In his example, he showed $200,000 per year extra going toward scheduled maintenance of buildings and equipment, and $500,000 for a “rainy day fund” for sudden, big-ticket repairs.  Perhaps even more important, is the $200,000 that could be used to increase the long-standing $2,500 per year flat local supplement for our teachers, which is too low to keep our younger teachers from jumping to neighboring counties who offer two or three times as much.  Finally, $200,000 per year extra appears on the “sample budget” for athletics at the two consolidated schools, along with an additional $100,000 per year for band and other music programs.

And speaking of sports — a majority of the feedback WIZS has heard is very positive toward consolidated high school sports teams, in light of the struggle both high schools have had fielding football teams, soccer teams, softball teams, JV teams of all kinds, and full marching bands.  The idea of a consolidated Vance County high school returning to the athletic glory days as a competitive 3A or 4A power seems to fire the imagination of some “more mature” citizens.

The emotional factors were represented in the concerns voiced by some parents that their children, especially high school juniors and seniors would have difficulty making the change, in light of the rivalry, sometimes intense and negative, between NVHS and SVHS.  The VCS staff members present at the gatherings have tried to address those concerns by pointing out that plans would be made for shifting the “new culture” of the consolidated schools away from existing school identities by team-building exercises and involvement of the students in choosing new team names, mascots, and colors.