By WECT Staff | March 30, 2021 at 3:51 PM EDT – Updated March 30 at 11:22 PM
BRUNSWICK COUNTY, N.C. (WECT) – At a special meeting held Monday, March 30, Brunswick County School Board unanimously voted to approve the consultant’s recommendations (Plan A) for redistricting with one exception for students in the Mallory Creek Area.
Despite projected growth predictions in the northern region, students from the Mallory Creek Area will not be redistricted to South Brunswick High School. Should the student population of North Brunswick High School (NBHS) reach 1,400 in the future, the district would follow the consultants’ recommended contingency plan and seek ways to add capacity to NBHS to avoid overcrowding within the next five years.
The Phase 2 Redistricting Plan will impact approximately 71 elementary school students, 9 middle school students and 20 high school students.
The main changes are outlined as follows:
- The approved plan moves an area from Jessie Mae Monroe to Waccamaw, which provides a 100% K-8 zone for Waccamaw while providing some capacity relief for Jessie Mae Monroe ES. The eastern portion of Virginia Williamson ES (East of Middleton Blvd /Midway Rd) moves to Southport ES, which provides a 100% feed of Virginia Williamson into Cedar Grove MS. It is currently split between Cedar Grove and South Brunswick Middle Schools. Finally, undeveloped land south of Bellville ES and east of Town Creek ES has been moved to Bolivia ES. This move was done to align with the High and Middle School recommendations.
- Slight adjustments were made to middle schools to address a feeder pattern inefficiency between Waccamaw and Shallotte. A small portion of students were zoned for Waccamaw K-5, but then Shallotte 6-8. This has been adjusted so the students can attend Waccamaw for K-8. Adjustments were made to the southern part of the Leland MS and eastern part of Town Creek MS (undeveloped land) to align with High School feeder patterns.
- The southern part of North Brunswick HS zone moves to South Brunswick HS in the recommendation. This aligns an area on the far south that was moved to South Brunswick MS in Phase 1 (this does not involve the Mallory Creek subdivision). Undeveloped land was added to South Brunswick HS as a pro-active measure to avoid future overcrowding at North Brunswick HS.
The school board believed this was the right decision and one that created the least disruption.
“It will make all the feeder patterns match within the school — meaning all the kids at Union will go to the same middle school or all the kids at Southport Elementary will go to the same middle school, and won’t be split up between two different middle schools,” said Brunswick County School Board Chairman Harry Lemon. “This is what they (parents) wanted. We didn’t move many kids with his plan and, particularly, we didn’t move them long distances and things like that. Nobody likes their children to be moved from one spot to another and so this should work out very well.”
Forecasts indicated no facility overuse issues in elementary or middle schools in the next 10 years so no recommendations were made to add additional elementary or middle school capacity within the district in the foreseeable future.
Overcrowding is anticipated to impact high schools in the northern Brunswick area so this will be addressed with the NBHS Contingency Plan previously outlined.
Click here to view details of the consultants’ presentation.
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