LAURINBURG — The Board of Education met as a committee on Monday and discussed the naming of the new school — but that name won’t come until the July board meeting.
The board is unable to vote on subjects during the Committee of the Whole meetings since they’re meeting as a committee instead of a board.
Board members were split on four votes between the names of South Johnson and Stewartsville Elementary at the June board meeting, and it was asked that the board think about the names and bring the discussion to the Committee of the Whole.
It was asked of Superintendent Ron Hargrave and Board Attorney Eva DuBuisson to bring examples of what other school districts have done to name a new school.
“In Vance (County) they did basically the same thing that you did in terms of getting information,” Hargrave said. “They used various ways of getting feedback, but at the end of that result all the information was given back to the board and the board had to decipher that and come up with the name of the school.”
DuBuisson added the board has followed its own policy for naming the school with different types of voting, but those had been used at the last meeting.
“We’ve got to come up with something at the Board of Education meeting,” said Board Chairman Rick Singletary. “We just need to have those convictions and have our heads together.”
Singletary asked the board if, after soul-searching, anyone was willing to come to a compromise for the naming of the school — and Board Member Jeff Byrd said he felt like the issue needed to be laid to rest.
“I get both sides of the fence and I don’t really know if naming a school South Johnson is ever really going to let anyone know what the history of the school was,” Byrd said. “In five, 10, 15 years people are going to be like, ‘why did you name the school South Johnson?’
“Personally, I don’t want to keep fighting over something so, to me, something that’s not even that important,” he added. “I feel like we should just name the school and move on and give these kids something they deserve.”
Byrd added the board needs to focus on what’s important in the situation and it’s the students. One example he gave is, in four or five years the students at Laurel Hill won’t be saying they were North Laurinburg students they’ll all be saying they’re Laurel Hill students and wouldn’t know anything about North Laurinburg anymore.
“I agree we’ve got to move on,” Singletary said. “And I want us to go back to talking about how we’re going to get those scores up once we merge those two families together.”
It was agreed for the board to vote again on the subject at the July 8 meeting at the A.B. Gibson Building.
“Whenever we vote, I’m OK to compromise,” Byrd said. “At the end of the day I feel like the adults sitting here are not putting what’s most important in place, including myself — it’s the kids.”
Reach Katelin Gandee at 910-506-3171 or at [email protected]
