Randolph County Board of Education Chairwoman Becky Coltrane said that converting Archdale Elementary School into a sixth-grade school is the most feasible way to solve overcrowding in Archdale-Trinity area middle schools. A forum about the reorganization of K-8 schools will be held 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10, at Trinity High School.

“We looked at other options,” Coltrane told the NEWS several months ago. “We thought in the box, out of the box, around the box, under the box, you name it ... and right now I want the community to understand what we are facing.”

No one expected the recent economic crisis, she continued, but the resulting conditions mean that Wheatmore Middle School — originally expected to be open within five years — will likely not even be under construction for another 15 years.

“When it was only a few more years, we could have managed with things the way they are, but not now,” Coltrane said.

The reason the board cannot wait 15 years for a new middle school is student population growth. While depressed economic conditions will likely inhibit substantial residential development in the attendance area for the next few years, a study conducted by researchers from the Institute for Transportation Research and Education at North Carolina State University in 2008 indicates that the number of live births in the Archdale-Trinity area have been increasing for nearly 10 years.

According to the “Integrated Planning for School and Community, 2007-2008 Update,” live births peaked in 2000-2001. While the number of births dropped in the following years, from 1,947 in 2000 to 1,757 in 2004, those numbers remained steadily higher than in the mid-to-late 1990s.

The students born in 2000 will start middle school in the 2011-2012 school year, and the middle schools have been operating over capacity since 2006-2007.

“The middle school years are probably the three most difficult years of a child’s life,” Coltrane explained. “The kids are trying to find out who they are ... ask middle school teachers, (at that age) everything within them changes and everything around them changes.”

During those crucial years, when even well-performing children can fall behind, they need support and encouragement, she continued. They can’t get that when the schools are overcrowded, and are in fact more likely to fall behind or lose ground.

Faced with so many more years until they would have new infrastructure, but knowing that something needed to be done, Coltrane said the Board started looking at other options. One thing that stood out were the 350 open elementary school seats in the Archdale-Trinity attendance area not being used.

Last school year, Trindale Elementary had 250 unused seats and Hopewell Elementary had approximately 100.

“We looked at converting Trindale Elementary into a sixth grade school, but it is best suited as an elementary school,” Coltrane said. “And we can’t turn Braxton Craven into a full sixth through eighth grade middle school because it would require more trailers, and there is simply no place to put them without endangering the students.”

Coltrane said the Board had considered adding a sixth grade at the elementary schools. However, the state considers sixth grade to be middle school and requires those students to have access to elective classes such as band, and trying to provide that within an elementary school framework would be too difficult.

Coverting Archdale Elementary to a sixth grade school would be the best use of existing facilities, said Coltrane.

“Archdale Elementary’s facility would meet the needs of our middle school students better than other elementary schools,” she said. “There are advantages as to where it’s located and how the campus is (laid out).”

The elementary schools would be redistricted, Coltrane said, and Archdale Elementary’s faculty and materials would be divided between the other schools. This would not put a strain on the other elementary schools.

The reorganization, says Coltrane, would save the schools some money and buy some extra time.

“We spend $35,000 for every trailer at our schools, but we currently have the ability and the facilities to put each of our students in a brick and mortar classroom,” she pointed out.

In 2008-2009, Randolph County Schools budgeted $230,000 for mobile classrooms. At $35,000 each, the seven mobile classrooms in the Archdale-Trinity attendance area (not including those at Trinity High School) cost $245,000 per year to operate.

Coltrane acknowledges that even with reorganization, Braxton Craven will be the first to feel the effects of a growing student population.

“Yes, within five years we will likely need trailers again, but until then we can save money and make better use of what we already have,” she acknowledged.

“Right now, considering its age, Braxton Craven School is doing very well,” said Marty Trotter, assistant superintendent of operations for Randolph County Schools. “We always look at every building individually and ask ourselves if it’s worth fixing, but as a general rule buildings last 50 to 60 years.”

Braxton Craven was built in 1951 and was renovated in the mid-1990s.

Tammy Craven, last year’s president of Archdale Elementary School’s PTA, is not convinced that closing Archdale Elementary is the best option.

“I still think there’s another way,” said Craven. “If we’re going to end up using mobile units no matter what we do, why change anything?”

Coltrane is sympathetic, but resolute.

“All our children, our students, are special,” she told the NEWS. “We have at-risk, minority and special needs children in all our schools, as well as the people to help them.”

Why, Coltrane asked, should Randolph County Schools continue to put more than 1,200 middle school students at a disadvantage for the sake of one elementary school?

“We have to look at the bigger picture,” she said.