On November 17 the facility task force appointed by the Iredell County Commissioners and the Iredell-Statesville Board of Education unanimously voted to recommend a school construction plan estimated to cost $140,000,000 over the next several years.

The proposal includes many of the projects in the facility plan presented earlier this year by the school board, but it also has some significant differences.

Statesville High School would be renovated, and a “Freshman Academy” and science wing added. The earlier proposal had called for either relocating the school or rebuilding on the present site.

The renovations and additions to Statesville High will cost an estimated $20,000,000. Lake Norman High School, a brand new, state-of-the-art facility, was built for a little less than $25,000,000.

A new elementary school would be built to replace Ebenezer and Northview. Monticello elementary school would be closed and its students moved to an expanded N.B. Mills. The earlier proposal had called for replacing Monticello and N.B. Mills with a new school on an Arey Road site owned by the school board.

The most pressing facility need of the school system is to build the additional classrooms needed to accommodate the rapidly increasing number of students. Most authorities agree that at the elementary level smaller, neighborhood schools are preferable to larger schools. Given these facts, it seems absurd to abandon three existing elementary schools and consolidate them into larger units.

As of the date this is written, the county commissioners have not begun consideration of the plan.