Better Stanly County Schools Forum brings together ideas, opinions

Published 1:57 pm Wednesday, July 30, 2025

ALBEMARLE — The future of Stanly County’s public school district was discussed at the Better Stanly County Schools Forum in Albemarle last Thursday night.

Organized by the “Reclaiming Greatness in Stanly County Schools” community group, the forum brought together an assortment of county leaders, teachers and parents to examine the local school system’s plans.

The event, held at the Farm Bureau Livestock Arena, was attended by three members of the Stanly County Board of Education — Meghan Almond, Carla Poplin and Bill Sorenson — along with County Commissioners Brandon King, Patty Crump and Billy Mills.

“I appreciate you all being here tonight,” Poplin said. “It’s good to get to hear what the community is feeling and thinking.”

Much of the discussion concerned Stanly County Schools’ Capital Improvement Planning Committee, which has targeted a facilities consolidation plan that could shuffle around the district by combining individual high schools into a larger school, among other changes.

Increased population growth and the advanced ages of the county’s existing high schools have been cited as primary reasons for enacting facility changes.

“They brought in a demographer in May, and that demographer gave our CIP three scenarios to choose from,” Almond said. “One is a two-high school system, one is a one-high school system, and the other is a three-high school system. My personal opinion is that they would want to combine North Stanly, South Stanly and Albemarle, and then the other one would be West Stanly.”

Under that plan, a proposed “Eastern Stanly High School” merger of the three high schools would be built to contain around 1,400 students.

Crump took issue with the school board’s recent approach of discussing the details of school consolidation in closed sessions, rather than during the open sessions in front of the public.

“If you want to sell something and it’s worth selling, there’s no reason to hide it,” she said. “You’re going to put glitter on it, you’re going to put it out there at the front of the store because you want your product sold. So why, if they believe in consolidation, is this not being packaged and put out there for you?”

Multiple forum attendees discussed the importance of prioritizing community schools with smaller class sizes, while others brought up the idea of SCS reopening Ridgecrest Elementary School, which closed down in 2012.

A shared sentiment throughout the meeting by attendees was that the community needed to be more involved with school facility planning and that the school board needed to be more transparent along the way.

“We must somehow come together with the school board, commissioners and the public for our children,” Mills said. “We should always desire to have a voice and to be allowed to participate in our children’s education. That’s why you’re here. We will stand a very good chance of losing our next generation if we are prevented from having a parent involved.”

The Stanly County Board of Education will hold its next regular meeting on Aug. 5 at 6:15 p.m. in the Gene McIntyre Meeting Room at Stanly County Commons.