Saturday's Internet Edition, May 17, 2008.
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| Julie Whitaker urges the board of education to consider building one new, big, centrally located high school. She is gatering signatures on a petition. - Photo by Robin Snow |
The Garden Valley resident decided it was time to do something to convince the board of education to look elsewhere to solve overcrowding at the high school. She told board memberws last week she has collected 80 signatures on a petition asking them to consider building one large high school for the county.
“I believe that we can solve the most problems and provide the best education by keeping our students together and providing a new facility in a better location. The challenge is still how to pay for it without creating long term financial problems for ourselves,” she said.
Whitaker knows cost will be a major factor.
She said she believes many of the people who voted against the school bond in May did so because they didn’t want to see the county divided, but she also said she knows many voted no because of the property tax increase associated with the $37 million bond. But after doing some research, she isn’t sure how easily a mega school will be funded.
“It was explained to me that there is a chart that says to build a school for 2,400 students with athletic fields, etc. would cost $58 million. If we want one new high school, then considerable thought needs to go into how to fund it without raising the tax rate too high.”
Last fall, the estimate given to build one new high school on the land at Smith Grove was $42 million. That would mean an increase of $.09 per $100 valuation, raising the tax rate to $.73. For a person owning $100,000 of property, that would mean an increase of $70 a year in taxes.
Whitaker said she was made aware that some of the funding for ... subscribe to the Davie County Enterprise Record, P.O. Box 99, Mocksville, N.C. 27028.