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In the aftermath of S.W. Snowden Elementary closing, several questions remained. 

How long will students have to ride school buses to either Chocowinity Primary School (CPS) or Chocowinity Middle School (CMS)? Will former Snowden students have to register for CPS or CMS? Will Snowden employees still have jobs? And, is the school system really saving money by closing Snowden, a kindergarten through eighth grade school? 

The Daily News spoke to Superintendent Dr. Matthew Cheeseman and Beaufort County School leaders to see what Snowden students and their families can expect. 

How long will students have to ride the bus in the mornings and afternoon? 

According to Beaufort County Schools Transportation Director, Jeff Miller, there were 110 bus riders from S.W. Snowden Elementary. The average ride time, if all 110 students were on the bus, was 18 minutes in the morning and 35 minutes in the afternoon. The earliest pick up time was 6:43 in the morning, but the latest drop off time was 4:15 in the afternoon. Of the 110 students 12 students had bus ride times of up to 60 minutes in the morning and up to 75 minutes in the afternoon. 

Miller shared at the May 27 Beaufort County Board of Education meeting, before the board voted to close Snowden on June 3, that the updated bus rides to Chocowinity Primary School which included former Snowden students, were an average of 49 minutes in the morning and 52 minutes in the afternoon. The earliest estimated pick up time is 6:06 in the morning, but the latest estimated drop off time is 4:23 in the afternoon. 

The total number of former Snowden students on the bus would be 60 if all Snowden students rode the bus either in the morning or afternoon. Bus ride times can vary depending on if a student rides the bus in the morning or afternoon. Students may not ride the bus in the afternoon, because they attend extracurricular activities or participate in athletics. 

For Chocowinity Middle School, the total number of Snowden bus riders would be 50. The average ride time for those students would be 56 minutes in the morning and afternoon. The pick up and drop off times would be the same as Chocowinity Primary School. 

Therefore, the average amount of time students would spend on a bus increases by 34 minutes in the morning and 19 minutes in the afternoon. Again, these numbers can vary depending on how many students ride the bus every day. 

Will Snowden students have to register for either Chocowinity Primary or Middle School?

Gayle Rowell, Beaufort County Schools’ Systems Integration Specialist, said Snowden families will not have to register for either Chocowinity Primary School or Middle School. The district will automatically move students’ information and records to either school, depending on which grade students will attend in the 2026 school year. “It will be a smooth transition when they walk in. They will have their schedules already made for them and everything will be set and ready to go,” Rowell said.  

Will Snowden employees still have jobs with Beaufort County Schools? 

Cheeseman said no Snowden employees lost their jobs because of the closure. Some employees are at the end of their contract and have the option to “do something else.” 

By the end of the 2025 school year, Snowden had 22 employees. Of the 22 employees, four of them will move to Chocowinity Primary School due to class size law. According to North Carolina General Statute 115C-301, there is one teacher per 18 kindergarteners, one teacher per 16 first graders, one teacher per 17 second graders and one teacher per 17 third graders. For fourth grade and up, school districts have “maximum flexibility” to use allotted teacher positions to “maximize student achievement.” 

Several staff members at Snowden were at the end of their contracts, Cheeseman said. “So those individuals will choose to do something else.” Those who were not at the end of their contracts were reassigned to other schools in Beaufort County. Reassignments occurred on June 4. 

“There are contracts that have expired, and those people are electing to do other things. Sure, there may be certain circumstances where licensure is not aligned so we’ll have to say goodbye to that. But, every opportunity where there was a teacher that could be placed somewhere else in the district, we have done that whether they choose to keep that job throughout the summer. We would love to have them in those new roles.” 

Cheeseman said former Snowden educators will go to Chocowinity Primary, Chocowinity Middle, John Cotten Tayloe (which will merge with Eastern Elementary to become Washington Elementary), P.S. Jones Middle and possibly Northeast Elementary. 

Is the school district really saving money by closing S.W. Snowden Elementary? 

Cheeseman explained that, yes, the school district is projected to save an estimated $1.7 million by closing Snowden. Most of the expenses associated with Snowden came from salaries. While the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction funds for a teacher administrators’ base pay, county school districts are expected to pay for the benefits packages. 

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction determines how many teacher and administration positions it will fund based on a number of metrics including student daily attendance records. In 2019, the school district had 298 state funded teacher positions. Five years later, that number decreased to 251 and it is expected to further decrease by seven positions for the 2026 school year. Also, Beaufort County Schools has lost nearly 2,000 students in the last 25 years, the school district has shared. 

Over the last six years, Beaufort County Schools has lost 54 state funded teacher positions. This means that if the school district wants to maintain those seven positions, the associated salaries would have to be funded with local money.  

While the state pays for most of the salary, the school district uses local funds to pay for employees’ benefits packages. 

For example, a beginning teacher’s salary is $40,000 but with benefits, it becomes $70,000. The $40,000 is funded by the state, but the remaining $30,000 is covered by the county. Therefore, if the school district loses seven teacher positions, then the county would have to pay $70,000 for each teacher if it wanted to keep those positions. 

Cheeseman likened pairing current Beaufort County educators with vacant state funded teacher positions to playing Sodoku. “We are absolutely playing the game of trying to extend the local dollar. That is a one-to-one ratio to whatever the state will take.” 

“Because of our losses,” Cheeseman said in reference to allotted state funded teacher positions, “in order to maintain that school and our other schools, I would have to use more local funding. Well, when you get flat funded at $16.139 million (not included capital funding), I’m running out of money.” 

Beaufort County Schools has received the same amount of funding from the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners for the last five years.