Schools Refining 2019-2020 Attendance Area for New Elementary

Earlier proposals shifted attendance lines at the Cameron and Carthage elementary schools, which are also in the Union Pines attendance area, to draw students from the more crowded schools. But the proposal now under consideration leaves both of those schools’ attendance lines as they are, for the 2019-2020 school year at least.

“The only changes that are recommended are between Sandhills Farm Life and the new school and Vass-Lakeview and the new school, getting back to our sole purpose that the new school is to relieve crowding at those two adjacent schools,” said Laura Evans of Numerix, the consulting firm hired by the board to lead the redistricting process as Moore County Schools opens four new elementary schools in the next few years.

This most updated plan takes into account home construction in the Sandhills Farm Life area that’s been approved by Whispering Pines. That includes 84 lots in the Summerfield , Arrowstone, Foxcroft, Heronsbrook, and Newbury Ridge subdivisions. About 20 homes have gone up in those neighborhoods since January, when the school district receives updated 10-year growth projections from the Operations Research and Education Laboratory at N.C. State University.

“I’ve done this in a lot of districts throughout North Carolina and what I see here is pretty typical development rates, buildout rates for these kinds of developments,” said Michael Miller, also with Numerix.

Under the latest proposal, about 540 students would attend the new 800-student school next year, bringing Sandhills Farm Life’s enrollment from 725 this year to about 420, and Vass-Lakeview’s from 630 to about 570.

Without the new school, both Farm Life and Vass-Lakeview would struggle to accommodate growing student numbers associated with population growth in central and eastern Moore County. Even with it, by 2023 Vass-Lakeview’s enrollment is projected to grow to 117 percent of what it was designed for.

Under the current proposal, the new school would grow from 68 to around 77 percent enrollment in the same timeframe.

The school board is expected to put the proposal forward for public input next week. An online form will be available from Nov. 6-15, and the board has scheduled a public hearing for Nov. 15 at Carthage Elementary.

A second redistricing phase is expected to take effect in 2020, when new K-5 schools open in Southern Pines and Aberdeen. More of the Sandhills Farm Life attendance zone may end up shifting over to the new school, particularly the area in Southern Pines off Airport Road.

“That looks like a lot of space but there isn’t that saturation of students. It’s a very modest number of children that live there, particularly in Pine Grove,” said Superintendent Bob Grimesey.

“Right now we don’t want to move them because we’re not sure which school they’re going to go to until we get into Phase 2. Under our guiding principle of avoiding moving children any more frequently than we need to, we think that it’s in that next phase, as we look to 2020-2021, where a decision would be made.”

Long-term, the board will eventually consider moving the boundary with the Cameron Elementary attendance area to deal with growth at Vass-Lakeview. Though Cameron’s classrooms are at about 90 percent capacity with 280 students, that school’s “core” amenities — the cafeteria and communal areas — were designed for 400 students.

So adding a modular classroom building, like the one that will be out of use at North More High when a planned expansion there is complete in a few years, would open that school up to more than 100 additional students.

“In the next phase of our discussion of the consideration of district lines between schools, that is a logical consideration. We owe it to the taxpayers and the county commissioners to consider that,” said Grimesey.

“In our previous discussions of whether we are making the best use of all of our facilities, with Cameron the answer is no. We have unused capacity with our core facilities that can be remedied with a nice, safe, six-unit modular building with bathrooms built into it and a new playground for Cameron as well. But that’s two years away.”

The approach of shifting students north from areas of southern Moore popular with military-connected families, could be applied at Farm Life as well in the longer term. If part of the Farm Life attendance area were moved to Carthage, that could be offset by adding the northernmost area of Carthage’s attendance area — which borders Chatham and Lee counties — to Highfalls.

“This is an enormously challenging project … we’re lucky in a way that we have options with the new 800-individual schools that are opening,” said board chair Helena Wallin-Miller. “I think what this has done is really opened up our eyes to some possibilities of looking at the whole school district in a way that we’ve not had the opportunity to do before.”

In addition to defined attendance boundaries, the Camp Easter Road school will also get a name before the end of the year.

When the schools took suggestions earlier this month, they received more than 500 online submissions over two weeks accounting for 66 unique names. Of those, 21 were the names of individuals, but Moore County Schools has traditionally reserved that practice for buildings and auxiliary facilities rather than schools themselves.

Next week, the board will consider taking online input on a “short list” of selections: McDeeds Creek Elementary, Fairway Elementary, Piney Woods Elementary, Camp Easter Elementary and Pine Meadow Elementary.

The school board is expected to take final action on approving both the new school’s name and attendance area on Dec. 10.