The Cumberland County Board of Education established a new committee Thursday to explore the idea of adding middle schools to the school system
School Board Member Shannon Stout said she would like the committee to determine the availability and the suitability of the schools for middle school activities. She said the board would also need to consider redistricting.
“You know, if we narrow down to certain schools that we think would work best,” Stout said. “What’s that gonna look like with redistricting across the district? What’s that gonna look like for bus routes across the district, and what kind of cost is gonna be associated with all of this?”
School Board Member Jon Matthews said he would like to find non-school-board members to help serve on the committee and have it formed by next month’s meeting.
“In my mind, hopefully we should be able to do that in the next 30 days,” Matthews said. “By the next meeting or whatever, have at least an idea of something to present back to the board of who is gonna be on this board. So if we can start that being task one of forming subject-matter experts for this.”
The school board policy does not allow for more than four school board members to be on the committee. Travis Cole, Jon Matthews, Nicholas Davis, and Scott VanWinkle volunteered to serve on the committee.
The board discussed setting a start and end date for the committee. School Board Member Travis Cole said he believes this will be a lengthy process and that an end date should not be placed on the committee.
“Personally, I don’t think it’s reasonable to put an end date on it,” Cole said. “We are walking off into the unknown and a project that’s never been done here before in a unique geographical county with a unique population and needs. Unless it’s a have to, I don’t think it’s reasonable to put an end date on it right now. We just need to get started. We need to start with this committee and grow it with those subject matter experts at the same time that we are starting our checklist of what answers are we trying to look for here.”
Stout said since the committee is considered a special committee, a start and end date is needed; otherwise, it would be an ongoing committee. Stout said setting an end date is not a major concern.
“It doesn’t mean that we need to end the committee forever, but if we task the committee with certain things to start with, and we say we want this by February, and then you are gonna bring it to the board, you are gonna give your report. We are all gonna talk it about at the board, and then we are gonna decide what the next steps that need to come next, and then we can see that we need to establish a committee to handle these next steps. It can be the same ones, it can be different people at that point because it is gonna be different things that we are tasking with.”
The board approved a motion to assign the committee to form a start and end date plan prior to the next school board meeting.
In other business, the school board tabled a decision to award a bid to resurface tennis courts for the school district. Director of Schools Rebecca Farley said she only received one bid, which was an estimated $95,800.
Farley said she try to survey price quotes for what it would cost to build new tennis courts, but she has not heard back from any of the companies.
Farley will try to get more interaction on price quotes to replace or build new courts.
