By Staff
Martin County residents rally before hearing Monday
By DAN PARSONS
Staff Writer
WILLIAMSTON — Taylor Pierce is one of the top-10 students in her sophomore class at Jamesville High School. When she graduates, she plans to attend East Carolina University where she will study photography.
Joy Askew, a Jamesville High School junior, is among the top-five in her class. She’s hoping to attend North Carolina State University.
If the Martin County Board of Education votes Feb. 4 to close that school, those futures may be put in jeopardy, the pair told a gathering of Concerned Citizens of Bear Grass and Jamesville on Thursday night.
If Bear Grass and Jamesville high schools are closed as a result of the proposed consolidation, Pierce said she feared the classes would become “unbelievably huge,” as compared with her classes now.
At Thursday’s rally, held at the Senator Bob Martin Eastern Agricultural Center, she claimed the school board wasn’t listening to the students most directly affected by the decision it may make a week from Monday.
The rally was held to update residents on the process that may close the two schools and to raise funds for legal services, should they be needed once the school board’s vote is taken. The group has raised about $26,000 toward a goal of $50,000. They have retained attorney Robert Hunter of Greensboro and have him on standby pending next week’s school-board vote on the consolidation.
Hunter represented Wake CARES, a group of Wake County residents that sued their school board over redistricting issues.
The Martin County School board voted Dec. 3 to examine the option of having only two high schools in the county, which Superintendent Tom Daly says would help to ease concerns about aging facilities and declining enrollment in the county.
The proposed consolidation would move students attending Bear Grass High School to Roanoke High School in Robersonville. It would also send students at Jamesville High School to Williamston High School. Seventh and eighth graders at Bear Grass would move to Roanoke Middle School. Middle school students in Jamesville would remain there until a middle school is built in Williamston, according to Phil Hodges, who is heading the coalition to oppose consolidation.
The school board is required by law to hold a public hearing on the proposed consolidation, which has been set for Monday at the Williamston Auditorium, located at Williamston High School. The hearing will last two hours. Registered speakers will have three minutes each to plead their case for or against consolidation. That leaves time for 40 speakers.
Keeping the two schools open will require the cooperation of two teams that usually meet as rivals on the football field and basketball court, Jamesville resident Toby Holiday said.