Northwest, Northern Guilford schools on waiting list for repairs, improvements $300 million spending plan earmarks money for land acquisition for a new school, but no appropriations for repairs and upgrades by CHRIS BURRITT NW / NORTHERN GUILFORD – Schools in northwestern and northern Guilford County didn’t make the list of facilities slated for $300 million in repairs and upgrades from the sale of bonds. The spending plan recommended by the county’s Board of Education and approved by the Board of Commissioners last month does earmark nearly $10.7 million for the acquisition of land, including for a new school in the northwestern section of the county, said District 3 commissioner Justin Conrad, who represents Oak Ridge and Stokesdale. Expenditures on improvements for northwestern and northern Guilford schools aren’t slated for the next few years, according to the $300 million spending plan. “We are starting with the schools in the worst shape and working up to the schools with the least need,” school
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Photo by Chris Burritt/NWO
Mobile classrooms at Northwest Guilford High School, built in 1962, have occupied the school’s campus for decades. The 23 units, which are more than 20 years old, are there to stay, at least for the foreseeable future, as the school did not make the priority list for improvements slated for funding from the $300 million bond voters approved last November. Northwest High School serves over 2,100 students, the highest enrollment of any school in the Guilford County Schools system, and hundreds more new houses feeding into the school’s district are on the horizon.
board member Deborah Napper said in an interview last week. She represents District 5, which includes Summerfield Elementary School and Northern Guilford middle and high schools. The county is preparing to sell the bonds approved by voters in last November’s general election. Actual spending of the $300 million “is going to be a several-years process,” Napper
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said. “No matter where you are located in Guilford County, it may be years before you see the benefit” of spending. Spending on other projects – such as the replacement of Northwest Guilford Middle School and the construction of a new northwest-area aviation high school – is going to take even longer because of their dependence upon future bond sales. Nora Carr, chief of staff of Guilford County Schools (GCS), told the school board in March that the district’s staff is talking to county commissioners, community leaders and others about putting another bond issue on the ballot. Conrad said he’d be open to the idea of placing another school bond on the ballot “in a relatively short amount of time,” depending upon how the economy recovers from the COVID-19 outbreak.
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The economic lockdown last spring due to the pandemic figured into the county commissioners’ decision to limit the bond referendum to $300 million, Conrad said. The Board of Education requested a $1.6 billion referendum.
“Nobody knew what was going to happen in the middle of a pandemic,” Conrad said in an interview earlier this week. “To move faster than that, I thought was irresponsible.” Easing of overcrowding of schools in northwestern Guilford County is a priority of commissioners, said Conrad, explaining the appropriation of $10.66 million for land acquisition for construction of new facilities is a first step.
