Spending of $300 million school bond to be a ‘several-years process’ No immediate plans are in the works to upgrade or replace school facilities in northwest/northern Guilford County, but school board members say they will ‘work up to the schools with the least need’
by CHRIS BURRITT NW GUILFORD/GREENSBORO – A familiar distinction awaits the return of students to Northwest Guilford High School – the largest number of mobile classrooms in the county. Twenty-seven trailers populate the high school’s campus, followed by a village of 19 mobile units at adjacent Northwest Guilford Middle School, according to Guilford County Schools (GCS). The number of trailers is far
Summerfield Merchants Association wishes the students in our community a great 2021-22 school year
Be curious Pay attention Do your homework Make new friends Devour knowledge Seize all the opportunities a new school year offers Summerfield Merchants Association (SMA) is dedicated to supporting our local businesses and community. We meet the first Tuesday of each month, at various member host locations. For more info about SMA, or to be our guest on Tuesday, Sept. 7, email
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fewer at other schools in the northwestern and northern areas – four at Stokesdale Elementary, two at Pearce Elementary and three each at Northern Guilford Elementary and Kernodle Middle.
Guilford County voters approved the bond sale in last November’s general election. Actual spending of the $300 million “is going to be a several-years process,” Napper said.
The district currently has more than 500 mobile or temporary classrooms in use, according to a recommended $2 billion facilities master plan that Cooperative Strategies, a school facility planning firm, presented to GCS in November 2019. The trailers aren’t going anywhere any time soon, according to GCS’ plan for spending $300 million from the sale of bonds for repair and upgrades. Schools in northwestern and northern Guilford County didn’t make the list of facilities slated for improvements planned for schools elsewhere in the county that were determined to have more serious renovation needs.
“No matter where you are located in Guilford County, it may be years before you see the benefit” of spending.
Longer term, the plan does address easing student overcrowding in northwestern and northern schools with a commitment to spend $10.66 million for the acquisition of land for several new schools. They include sites for the replacement of Northwest Middle School, a northwestern Guilford-area aviation high school and a northern Guilford-area elementary school, according to GCS.
“We are starting with the schools in the worst shape and working up to the schools with the least need,” school board member Deborah Napper said in an interview in May. She represents District 5, which includes Summerfield Elementary School and Northern Guilford middle and high schools.
Spending on other projects – such as the replacement of Northwest Middle School and the construction of a new northwest-area aviation high school – is going to take even longer because of their dependence upon future bond sales. Nora Carr, GCS’ chief of staff, told the school board in March that the district’s staff is talking to county commissioners, community leaders and others about putting another bond issue on the ballot. The district’s plan recommends eventually replacing all mobile classrooms. For now, the deteriorating condition of the units is a problem across the county, according to District 5 county commissioner Carly Cooke, who represents Summerfield.
“We can all agree there is a need,” Cooke said in an interview in May. “I wish we were doing more in the first phase, but with the dollars that we have, I think it was a fair way to allocate them. I appreciate the process we used to pick the projects. It is based upon the need.” The spending plan resulted from a 2019 countywide study that proposed a mix of new construction, renova-
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