By: Caitlin Cornett and Callie Duke
Over the past few weeks, Transylvania County residents have been hotly debating the topic of consolidating both of their public high schools. Many people have seen this idea from both ends of the spectrum.
Mike Rogers who is only one out of the five Board Of Education Members, is in favor of this idea. Rogers states that he began to support this idea when the Board Of Education began to discuss an eighteen to twenty million dollar taxpayer bond. Rogers then asked for enrollment data corresponding to each grade level in the Transylvania County School system. Rogers then went on to create a data spreadsheet which was reviewed with Superintendent Jeff McDaris and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Scott Elliott. From this research Rogers stated, “I became concerned about a possible rapid declining enrollment at the two high schools (BHS and RHS).”
According to Rogers’ calculations, “If DRS enrollment continues to remain stable at 149 students, BHS is projected to lose 161 students (23%) in the next six years while RHS is projected to lose 67 students (19%) in the next nine years.”
Many citizens throughout the community have strongly opposed the thought of consolidating the two schools. Rogers asks those who disagree with the consolidation to look at the available data. Consolidation continues to be a hotly debated topic amongst rural school districts, says Penn State College of foundation. Although Rogers seems to hold firm to his argument that consolidation is the best thing for the rural community of Transylvania County it doesn’t seem to be in the near future.
The majority of Transylvania County residents are elderly and live mostly off of fixed incomes. Therefore many of them would not be able to afford the high tax increase on land. Overall, it seems that consolidation does not seem like an idea that community is open to embracing in the near future.