A strong, educationally sound school system is fundamental to our community’s well being. Over the past two decades, the county has allowed the condition of our school facilities to languish. During the bond campaign for Kids and Families, Former School Board member Mia Burroughs explained that growth in the school system not paying for itself:
“This community grew like crazy in the 1990s and early 2000s,” says Mia Burroughs, who served seven years on the CHCCS board prior to becoming an Orange County commissioner in 2014. “We were bringing online an entirely new school every few years or so. Then the recession hit, and there were various funding cuts with the state, and the districts got kind of caught up by that.”
As growth in the school districts slowed, maintaining aging schools surfaced as a primary challenge.
“There hasn’t been a significant increase in county funding for renovations at schools, even as we’ve added all these new buildings,” says CHCCS chairman James Barrett. “So now we have more buildings to maintain and not enough ongoing capital money to do things like replace roofs and heating systems.”
The passage of the November 8th 2016 Bond issue was an important first step in ameliorating the conditions at Chapel Hill High School and Lincoln Center.
A video put out by the schools – https://vimeo.com/185387084 – explains the funding for the school district and how that funding will be put to use to renovate the school facilities.
But there is much more to be done. As citizens we need to be sure the funding agency, the County Commission, will be ready to fund future facility needs. The Schools have a 3 phase plan to update and repair the older schools.