In the fall of 2001, North Rowan High School was overflowing, with nearly 900 students on its rolls. Six mobile classrooms sat on the campus, with more to come, and some classes met in East Spencer’s Dunbar Center because there wasn’t enough space at North.
A year later, Rowan voters approved a $77 million bond package that earmarked almost $4.7 million for North Rowan High, enough to get capacity to 1,200. Included were a 14-classroom addition, a new vocational building and a cafeteria expansion. But by the time the project was completed in the fall of 2006, North’s enrollment was below 800 and dropping. Now it’s 678.
What went wrong?
The easy answer is that the school board redistricted too many students out of North without moving more in from somewhere else. But district lines are just one part of the puzzle. North might be celebrating its size ó bigger is not always better ó except for troubling student performance on end-of-grade tests. Though the school has produced its share of Morehead Scholars and Park Scholars, its overall performance on such measures has hurt North’s image ó which makes fewer people want to go there, which makes scores drop further, and so on. Now the school is slated to drop to a 1A athletic conference in the fall of 2009. Only extraordinary effort can reverse this trend.
For now, parent Corinne Mauldin and others who push for solutions deserve an A for alerting the entire county to North Rowan High School’s situation. They should keep it up. The school board thought it had taken care of the equity question by adding space to North at the same time it expanded other schools with bond money. But the “build it and they will come” principle did not pan out. Residential growth has been slow to come to the north end of the county; the south and west are where the action is.
Eagle Heights and Country Club Hills are often mentioned as neighborhoods that should be redistricted from Salisbury High to boost North Rowan. If the school board took those neighborhoods out of Salisbury, it would have to pull others into Salisbury, and the neighborhoods along N.C. 150 are closest. That plan has been on the table before, and it may be the ultimate solution. But families on N.C. 150 fought redistricting a few years ago just as ferociously as they fought involuntary annexation by the city this year. They could be expected to do the same if redistricting comes up again. The Salisbury families would also resist mightily. The school board is wise to seek other solutions before setting the stage for a bitter clash like that.
It’s easy to see how North’s falling enrollment affects the entire school system. Fortunately, the school has an improvement plan and a lot of determination on its side. Prompted by the athletic conference issue ó the final straw ó North’s supporters won’t rest until the school board finds a real solution. The school board shouldn’t rest, either.