Build the new high school now

A new Rocky Mount High School should be of interest to most people in this area and will either directly or indirectly impact most of us. Some of us with no children in school will pay more taxes as a result, but we don’t mind if it will bring tangible results and can be justified.

Our school board and county commissioners are at odds over when to build. Maybe it would be easier if the systems switched to totally county line systems like most of the state is and would do away with much of the territorial problems.

Assuming that won’t happen until some place freezes over, I suggest we look at when it should be built and why.

First off, I have a problem with a school board consisting of two retired principals on the school board, one member, the spouse of the superintendent’s assistant, and others with education ties. This doesn’t lend to fair and impartial decision-making, especially when two of the principals worked for the superintendent before.

Also, considering that the superintendent’s office and the school board leadership were contacted recently regarding the new high school and calls were not returned: If you don’t want to respond to the tax-paying public, then why should we support your new high school?

Nash-Rocky Mount Schools has lost nearly 1,000 students just in the past two years. One report shows that with elementary students taking the math and English end of course tests that only 24 percent passed both the tests; that means that 74 percent failed.

These are the students who will feed into our high schools. The dropout rate is already high. I suggest that the county commissioners ask the school board what they intend to do to fix the academic and behavior problems before authorizing the money like a blank check.

All that aside, I do believe this area needs the new Rocky Mount High School and the sooner the better. At the same time Nash schools are losing students, the private schools are gaining enrollment, and there’s a reason for that. Faith Christian Academy is now in the planning stages for a new high school and is seeing membership growth. Rocky Mount Academy is continuing to show top performance.

I believe in public education but I also believe in accountability. The Nash school board is too heavy with people indebted to the superintendent to fairly weigh all the pros and cons.

I do, however, think that if the new high school could be built in two years that it should begin the process now rather than later. About seven years ago, I spent some time in Rocky Mount Senior High and saw the need for a new high school then.

The facilities for a modern-day high school are way outdated.

The campus is way too small. The technology facilities do the job, but need much improvement. Computer desks are not even really computer desks, but makeshift tables that are not efficient.

The new high school property is located in an area that will be conducive to good traffic flow, a safer environment and has ample space for the school. The proposed site will also help improve the residential and related business tax base in the southern part of Rocky Mount, which should help Nash County tax revenues and improvements for that general area (balanced growth for Rocky Mount).

We all know that the new high school is one factor that will help draw new businesses, and the current one is a negative.

If we can afford to build it in two years, then let’s get started now. It’s still a tough pill to swallow with the dismal academic performance for Nash-Rocky Mount Schools and for those in the southern and western parts of Nash County who will help pay for it. What’s an alternative?

Go to county lines, let Edgecombe take the new high school on the east side of Rocky Mount.

Do we really need the new high school?

Maybe the new high school will be an enticement for people to put their kids back in public schools. Let’s help pull Rocky Mount out of the pits: build the new high school and then go ahead and approve the field house for the jocks at that other school.

Ken Pledger

Rocky Mount

Please, with your power, help influence our Rocky Mount leaders. The Forbes list is so realistic, so easy to see what has happened.

Our leaders have become passive, our courtrooms are “mobbed up,” our city officials are just counting the days until retirement, our city workers are just counting the hours in the day, our citizens are scared to death to even go shopping in Rocky Mount, our church parking lots are riddled with purse snatchers.

So please, with your publications, please help us, help us spread the news, we need help.

Karen Kennedy

Rocky Mount