Growth of Randolph County Schools Leads to Upgrades, Construction
carla freemyer, dr. russ gobble, education, growth, guy b. teachey elementary school, lower taxes, piedmont, population, providence grove high school, randolph county schools,
If you could take a yardstick and pencil to the city and county school systems‚ their growth would be off the charts. The growth spurt that the whole Piedmont region is experiencing means that the student population is flourishing‚ as well.
Dr. Russ Gobble‚ assistant superintendent of Randolph County Schools‚ has a philosophical attitude about it all.
“Growth is a good thing and growth can be challenging. Growth means this is a healthy place to be‚” he says.
What’s behind the popularity of the region? Gobble says there are many factors that make Randolph County attractive: “The ability to live in Randolph County and have lower taxes‚ great schools‚ easy accessibility to larger cities‚ great community and great friends.
“The Piedmont area is very popular because of the climate‚ and businesses are relocating here. There’s economic development and that spurs growth.”
As for the schools‚ they are growing at about 5 percent per year‚ Gobble says.
“We have 225 more students than we had anticipated [for the 2006-07 school year]‚” he adds.
The school system now has 29 schools serving 18‚942 students.
“We’ve had to do major planning over the last few years‚” Gobble says. “We’re getting ready to put two new high schools in place. It’s the first time we’ve built high schools in probably 30 to 40 years. Our county commissioners and other local government agencies have really supported the fact that we’re building these schools.”
Providence Grove High School is scheduled to open in August 2008‚ and another new high school in the Archdale-Trinity area will open in 2009 or later.
Carla Freemyer of the Asheboro City Schools system sees the same trend happening in the eight city schools.
“The county has had a huge bubble [of growth] going through at the high school level‚ and we have that at the kindergarten and elementary level‚” Freemyer says.
“We’ve addressed the growth by adding permanent additions to all of our elementary schools and additions to one middle school and one high school. We are presently expanding one of our elementary schools.”
Guy B. Teachey Elementary School will start the 2007 school year with brand new additional classroom space. Improvements to the schools have also helped the system to comply with the governor’s initiative to reduce class sizes.
The Asheboro City Schools district has partnered with the Operations Research/Education Laboratory at North Carolina State University for studies intended to help predict growth and make projections for future needs.
“They’ve been very accurate‚” Freemyer says of the projections.
The Asheboro schools served about 4‚500 students during the 2006-07 school year.
Freemyer cites the region’s strong economy as one of the reasons for the growth.
“Our growth is here to stay and we’ll continue to have to deal with that‚” she adds.
Story by Kimberly Daly
Story by Kimberly Daly
