The next step in the school merger issue has nothing to do with merger, but looking at ways to improve all three school systems, Halifax County Board of Commissioners Chair James Pierce said during a break in today's meeting.
The focus of the morning meeting was mostly devoted to the school issue as the University of North Carolina Center for Civil Rights gave a report issued earlier this year which recommends merging the three school systems. Roanoke Rapids and Weldon released a joint statement opposing merger.
Many attending the meeting from Roanoke Rapids and Weldon wore red ribbons as a symbol of their opposition to merger.
Pierce said the first thing that needs to happen is a discourse among the commissioners of where the matter needs to go. He said the county in the past has talked about engaging an outside consultant to look at the matter, something he said he wants to see happen. “I don't know that merger is the answer. I hope that's what a consultant can tell us.”
While Pierce has publicly supported merger, he said his point is to get the three school systems to sit down and discuss ways they can all improve, “What do they have to do improve education. I'm not hung up on one school system, I'm hung up on better education.”
As it stands now, at best there were would be a deadlock if the matter came to a vote, Pierce said.
Dorosin addresses the board.
Elizabeth Haddix, a staff attorney with the center, told commissioners its study was based on state Department of Public Instruction statistics, board meeting minutes and boundaries which she said were set up to exclude black people not only from schools, but from getting jobs within the city limits.
Haddix said the way the boundaries are now is clearly racial segregation when the white population of Halifax County is only 39 percent. She mentioned an effort in 1970 to form a Scotland Neck school district which was declared unconstitutional. “What was wrong in Scotland Neck in the 1970s is still wrong today.”
Roanoke Rapids school district lines, said Mark Dorosin, a senior managing attorney for the center, don't match with the city's boundaries.
The three school systems, he said, are in an area where the rural population is declining with Roanoke Rapids as a moderately good school. All three systems, Dorosin said, are below state average.
Following the initial presentation, Pierce said something must be done. “To do nothing is irresponsible. Everyone in this room wants to improve education for our children.”
Whatever happens, Pierce said, “Consolidation might be the answer, it might not. We're going to figure it out ourselves.”
Dorosin with charts and graphs.
Pierce opened the floor for people who signed up to speak and allowed them five minutes. Commissioner Rives Manning was one of those speakers and a later motion by Manning to allow speakers adequate time to share their views ended in a deadlock.
Manning said the history of the graded school district lines in Weldon and Roanoke Rapids are not an example of gerrymandering. “This whole report is based on gerrymandering. This is not gerrymandering. There is no gerrymandering because gerrymandering is when you change the lines. The lines have not been changed.”
Neal Ramee, an attorney for the Weldon and Roanoke Rapids systems, presented a 27-page joint statement to the commissioners.
“The Weldon City Board of Education and Roanoke Rapids Graded School District Board of Education adamantly disagree with the center's analysis and firmly oppose the proposed merger.”
The statement says neither state or federal constitution require consolidation. “All three school districts were desegregated long ago and there is no underlying constitutional violation to remedy. Moreover, the Supreme Court has held that inter-district remedies such as forced school district consolidation can be ordered only in extraordinary circumstances that simply are not present here.”
Merger opponents wore red ribbons.
Ramee said in the least, some 3,658 students would have to be moved to achieve racial balance and that doesn't account for the moves that would have to be made in individual schools.
Consolidation, he said, would result in huge tax increases of around $7 million a year and some $1.5 million would revert to the state.
Stan Clayton, a concerned citizen, said consolidation would be another burden on county taxpayers, representing some $16 million more each year.
With the whopping tax burden opponents of consolidation say it would represent, all economic development recruitment efforts would be futile if the taxes went sky high because of merger, Roanoke Rapids businessman David King said.
The one thing that wasn't discussed, King said, were the financial problems within the Halifax County School System. “Step one is to have them fix the problems. If Northwest Halifax was rated one of the top 10 we in Roanoke Rapids and Weldon would be beating down the door. Halifax County is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on (state education teams). Let's fix the problem first.”