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The Beaufort County Board of Education voted 7-2 on Tuesday, Mar. 25 to tentatively close S.W. Snowden Elementary School in Aurora (Snowden). 

If Snowden closes permanently, it would happen before the 2025-2026 school year. 

Voting in favor were: Gary Carlton, Eltha Booth, T.W. Allen, Terry Williams, Carolyn Walker, Daniel Hudson and Donald Shreve. Charles Hickman and Stacey Davis voted in opposition. 

Hickman said he could not vote for the eventual closure of Snowden, because, “a lot of us in this community, that live here, we know how things were in Richlands township. We also know how things are now. At this time, you’re dealing with how things will be…I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to implement actions that will affect the future of the Richland township negatively.” 

Davis suggested the board should give Snowden’s faculty an opportunity to find alternatives that could keep the school open. 

All of the board members concurred that the vote on whether to close Snowden was a “heartbreaking decision.”

“We totally understand these are really hard decisions we’re chasing, but it comes down to data that we can see and obviously we have to take into consideration each and every thing,” Hudson said. 

Two glaring realities stared back at Board of Education members as they contemplated initiating a process that could close the K-8 school permanently – a reduction in the number of state funded teacher positions and a dwindling student population. 

In the fall of 2019, there were 298 state funded teacher positions in Beaufort County; however, in 2024, there were 251, according to Beaufort County Schools Superintendent Dr. Matthew Cheeseman. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, he said, is projected to take another 6.89 positions away next year. Over the last six years, the county has potentially lost 53.29 state funded positions, Cheeseman continued. 

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction funds teacher positions based on the total number of students within a school district, not total number of students in a school. When a school district loses a state funded teacher position, then its board of education has to use local funds to continue paying that teacher. 

A challenge for Beaufort County Schools is paying for the positions they lost when the deficit between what the school district needs in funding versus what the county commissioners allot is approximately $6.525 million in local expenses over the course of six years, Cheeseman said during Tuesday’s meeting. Since school year 2020-2021, Beaufort County Schools has requested a total of $82 million in local expenses, but has received $75.479 million, according to the school district. For the current school year, the district requested $18.108 million; however, it received $16.139 million. 

He continued to explain that based on his professional projections, Beaufort County Schools’ total student population could dip below 5,000 by the 2027-2028 school year, because graduation rates are greater than birth rates in the county and school vouchers give families the option to send their children to a non-public school. 

The ability to transfer to a non-public school or to another public school in Beaufort County has contributed to Snowden’s low student enrollment. Currently, the school has 122 total students from kindergarten to eighth grade. This school year, Snowden closed its pre-kindergarten class due to staff shortages. 

Cheeseman’s professional projection for Snowden’s enrollment in the 2025-2026 school year is 108 students with closer to 100 students in the following two years. 

That is significant for Snowden, because if a school’s enrollment is less than 100 students, then the state does not fund the principal position which means money would have to come from local funding to retain the principal position which includes salary, benefits and healthcare. 

Snowden students who do not transfer to either a charter or private school will be moved to Chocowinity Primary School or Chocowinity Middle School. Students also have the option to request a transfer to another school within the Beaufort County school district.

This, Snowden advocates argued, could limit students’ chances of participating in extracurricular activities after school and reduce the amount of available time to do homework, because they live far away from the school. Snowden students, if moved to Chocowinity, will have to commute at least 30 minutes or more from the Aurora area. 

“Bus rides for rural students are not just a simple inconvenience,” Snowden middle school science teacher, Megan Boltes, said to Board of Education members during a public comment period at Tuesday’s meeting. “They are long, exhausting and have a real impact on the physical and mental well-being of our kids.” 

Snowden music teacher, Bradley Cannon, pleaded with board members during a public comment period to reconsider closing the elementary school because closing the school could have a major impact on the vitality of Aurora. 

“Over the last few years, as a native of Aurora, I’ve seen how our town has taken a lot of heavy blows,” Cannon said, noting the lack of a grocery store, medical center and soon a bank; however, he added that a medical facility is coming to Aurora and possibly a food store. “But I feel like the main thing that would really kill the momentum would be if our school were to close at this moment.” 

After the meeting Cannon spoke to the Daily News about the morale at Snowden. He said there is “a lot of fear and a lot of nervousness.” 

“We’ve been hearing little tricklings of the conversations for a while, but tonight was kind of like the bandage that’s finally been ripped off,” Cannon said, adding that students and staff would like for Snowden to remain open.

Dr. Patricia Horton-Albritton, principal of Snowden said she was “not surprised” by the vote. She believes there will be a large response from the Aurora community at future public hearings on the closure. 

The next steps for the Board of Education are to host public hearings where members of the community can provide comments. Beaufort County Schools has not scheduled any meetings as of Wednesday, Mar. 26. 

Earlier this month, the Daily News spoke to Aurora community members to ask how Aurora could change if Snowden closed. 

Anne Kennedy was concerned that if Snowden closed, then there would be less incentive for people and businesses to move to Aurora thereby thwarting possible growth. “Obviously basic things like a medical facility, a grocery store, the ability to get basic needs without driving 20 or 25 miles,” she said. 

“We’re retired. We knew what we were getting into when we moved down here and we thought this was okay,” Kennedy said, explaining that she and her husband thought things would turn around for Aurora in the near future. They have lived in Aurora for three years. 

“How do you want or expect the community to grow when you have nothing to offer and we see nothing coming along to help that,” Kennedy asked.  

Bernard Moore, of Bonnerton, asked a similar hypothetical question when he said,

“How do you have an area this big and you can’t have a school to provide for the students? Everybody’s moving out, because the town is dead.You’ve got no doctor’s office, no grocery store. You won’t have a bank on the 18th of next month. It’s just one thing behind the other…”