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The Cherokee County Board of Education expects to propose some kind of a school consolidation plan after its next meeting Thursday, two years and two months after turning down what would have been a $62 million state grant to build a new consolidated high school.
The board will have a workshop at 4 p.m. before the 5:30 p.m. regular meeting to discuss three 2024 consolidation proposals by school board members Steve Coleman, Jason Murphy and Jeff Tatham, as well as one proposal from a 2017 study. The timing is meant to qualify for state grants this year.
If all goes according to plan, the board will discuss options at its Feb. 6 workshop, pick a plan at its regular meeting that day, then forward the plan to the board of commissioners in time for its Feb. 17 meeting, effectively putting the ball in their court. The commissioners essentially have veto power over any facilities proposal.
After the consolidated high school proposal was rejected thanks to newly voted in school board members and commissioners in 2022, there is little appetite among officials to revisit a merger – despite the fact that the school district’s own statistics show it’s needed, as Murphy High School is only 65% full, while both Andrews and Hiwassee Dam high schools are less than half full. Good luck getting the General Assembly to fund the construction of three under-attended high schools in one of the state’s least-populated counties.
That consolidated high school would have been built next to the Schools of Innovation in Peachtree, which would have given every high school student in Cherokee County equal access to every educational program the system has, along with taking advantage of all the courses offered at Tri-County Community College next door. That would have made it possible for every high school graduate to also obtain an associate’s degree at the same time, saving the family tens of thousands of dollars in college expenses.
Students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grades won’t benefit from that whatsoever, which means building a K-8 school at that location is simply not the best possible use of the property. A high school is, even if it’s just a new Murphy High, as the old school is the most in need of a replacement.
A bigger question than what’s the best use of that particular piece of property is, what’s in the best educational interests of our students? Consolidating every Murphy area student in 10 grades onto one large campus, while leaving smaller country schools on both ends of the county, does not accomplish that noble goal.
While high school students need to get used to the bigger class sizes they will experience in college, studies have long showed that K-8 students benefit the most from smaller class sizes. Allowing some students to experience that, while forcing others into larger classes, is flat-out discriminatory to the county’s most populated area.
All of our students deserve an equal chance to succeed after graduating, something that is not always happening in Cherokee County Schools today. While a consolidated high school would have helped get us there, consolidating elementary and middle schools only reduces the number of campuses, saving some money on facilities but not necessarily improving our students’ ability to further their education in college or enter the work force.
Then there’s the question, will this even work? A consolidated high school at that location would have had about 800 students, a manageable number, but a K-8 campus would have more than 1,200 students. Because of that, they would also need to build a new kitchen, not just share one with the Schools of Innovation as discussed.
The biggest issue would be traffic. A high school includes hundreds of students who drive themselves, making the beginning and end of the day a bit more bearable. That’s not the case in K-8, and chaos could result daily in the dropoff and pickup lines – think how busy every school in Murphy is around 7:45 a.m. and 2:45 p.m. today, and how much worse that would be with students from Martins Creek, Peachtree and other schools thrown in for good measure.
Other challenges include that the Peachtree site does not have the required space for state-regulated playgrounds. A middle school also requires ball fields, but the county has made no attempt to acquire more land – unlike two-plus years ago.
However, all of that pales against the fact that the school board is going about this entire matter backward. The school system has not even taken the very first required step of conducting a study necessary to close the other schools, which is required before any grant can be awarded, as per N.C. General Statute 115C-72.
So we could expend tons of time and energy on the consolidation plan, only to have it fail if a study can’t justify closing Martins Creek or Peachtree, both which have fairly new campuses compared to others across the county. When high school consolidation was proposed, the system held public meetings first and only voted to close the schools because merging them was deemed best for Cherokee County, both educationally for students and financially for taxpayers.
No public hearings have been held on any of the plans the board will be discussing Thursday afternoon. That means we’re rushing to approve a plan this month even though it still needs those hearings, as well as an in-depth study, before it can even get off of the ground. It seems like some members want to get something set in stone right away in order to say they did something as well as keep a consolidated high school from coming back up again with a future board.
Instead, let’s do this the right way. Hold public hearings at each of the affected schools for parents and students. Talk with teachers, who do the heavy lifting, to make sure their viewpoints are considered. If we put our students first, not sentiment and tradition, a better idea will emerge.
David Brown is publisher of the Cherokee Scout. Call him at 828-837-5122 or email dbrown@cherokeescout.com.