By Carl Blankenship
carl.blankenship@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — Rowan-Salisbury Schools Assistant Superintendent for Operations Anthony Vann is scheduled to outline closure studies on Faith and Enochville Elementary schools during Monday’s school board meeting.

The administration was advised to move forward with closure studies on both schools in February after the board was presented with updated figures that ranked elementary schools based on power consumption, condition, capital needs, current capacity and maximum capacity. Closures and consolidations are an effort to save money and concentrate programs in a district that serves 18,800 students with 5,000 empty seats. Elementary schools make up about half of those empty seats.

Closing a single school would, conservatively, save $500,000 a year, according to RSS administration.

Enochville was brought up again for closure at the end of January, with Superintendent Lynn Moody saying the suggestion was based on it having the lowest student population of all the district’s elementary schools. Instead of proceeding with closure study at that particular meeting, the board asked the administration to update a chart.

The updated chart showed Enochville still ranked at the bottom of the list of elementary schools, along with Faith and Overton elementary schools. Overton is currently set to be closed as part of a plan to consolidate it with Knox Middle School and create a new K-8 facility.

Closing Faith could increase bus ride times for students who go there by 10 to 12 minutes. Ride times for some could also decrease, but there was not specific number of minutes attached to the decrease. About 49 employees would also have to be transferred as a result.

Ride times for students who attend Enochville could increase by 10 minutes, but some would decrease the same amount. About 47 employees would be transferred as a result.

Currently, the board is exploring closure options for the 2021-2022 school year rather than 2020-2021, which would give families and staff a full year before any schools closed. Vann and Moody have both said no one would lose a job as part of the closure and that employees would be transferred to other facilities.

The item is listed as a discussion item on the meeting’s agenda, and it is unlikely any action on the closures will be taken until the business meeting later this month.

Monday’s meeting will be at 4 p.m. at the Wallace Educational Forum — 500 N. Main St. in Salisbury.

Other items that will be discussed at Monday’s meeting include:

• Millbridge Elementary School will present its school-based renewal plan at the meeting. Each school in the district has been tasked with creating renewal plans that align with the directional system for the district. Some have been approved and others are awaiting approval or are still works in progress.
• Assistant Superintendent of Instruction Julie Morrow will present the board with information about competency based education, which is a method of instruction that focuses on the competency progression for each student.