THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 25, 1995 TAG: 9508250660
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CURRITUCK LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
The Currituck County Board of Education plans to shop around for a new Moyock elementary school site and expand classrooms at Central Elementary School in Maple.
The Board of Commissioners has given the school board the go-ahead to find a 30- to 40-acre area for a new elementary school for Moyock Township children.
Money for a land purchase will come from $200,000 set aside for the search, county officials said at a joint meeting Monday evening in Currituck.
The school site also will include a recreational area for community events, such as ball games.
Commissioners voted unanimously to proceed with a land search for a new elementary school, but the panel was split on how best to spend $2.4 million earmarked for construction.
The money will come from the remains of a $19.4 million schools construction initiative that included $16 million in voter-approved bonds for a new high school, Jarvisburg elementary school and upgrades at other schools.
Since the 1993 bond referendum, school construction costs have soared, and all of the bond money now is being devoted to the high school under construction in Barco.
Once the high school opens next fall, other schools will undergo a conversion. Some of the students now being taught in the overcrowded Moyock Elementary will transfer to Knapp Elementary, currently the county junior high school.
At Monday's meeting, three options for dealing with the burgeoning school populations, particularly at the northern end of the county, were discussed:
Spending $2.4 million to upgrade Central Elementary School to a 500-student facility from its current 358-pupil capacity. Ten new classrooms would be built and support areas, such as the cafeteria and media center, enlarged as required by the state. School district lines would be redrawn under the plan.
Combining the $2.4 million with other funding sources to build a new, 500-student elementary school in the north end of the county for about $6 million.
Adding as many classrooms as possible at Central Elementary without expanding other service areas. The balance of funds would be reserved for a new elementary school.
Commissioners decided by a 3-to-2 vote to proceed with the more conservative expansion of Central, which is expected to buy the county three or four years' before a new school will be needed in the northern end of the county.
Voting against the measure were Commissioners Paul O'Neal and Owen Etheridge.
``I voted `no' because we did not address the funding scenarios,'' O'Neal said after the meeting.
Etheridge said more analysis was needed on maximizing costs in the long- and short-term. The option to upgrade Central to a much larger facility should not be immediately discounted, he said.
``It just seems to me it would stretch things a little further,'' he said. That proposal would meet student enrollment needs for about seven years.
Other commissioners cautioned against making hasty decisions.
``I'm afraid to turn loose $1.2 million or $2.4 million because the high school's not built yet,'' Eldon Miller Jr. said of possible change-orders that could drive up construction costs. by CNB