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The Stanly County Board of Education further discussed redistricting for three elementary schools in the western end of the county at a special meeting Monday morning.

At a previous work session, the board was presented information regarding the overcrowding at Locust and Stanfield schools, and how moving 160 of those students to Endy could ease the problem.

School Board chair Robin Whittaker said redistricting would permit the new building at Endy to populate those classrooms “and relieve overcrowding in those two schools.”

According to Superintendent Dr. Jarrod Dennis, Locust has 573 students, but has a capacity of 500, while Stanfield is at 495 with a capacity of 460.

The redistricting, according to numbers given at the meeting, would reduce the capacity percentage numbers of Locust and Stanfield from above 100% into approximately 92% to 95%.

Board member Carla Poplin said she did not support moving separate setting students to Endy since the school demolished the playground and special needs students would not have access to a gym.

“I’ll file the civil rights complaint myself,” Poplin said.

When asked by board member Meghan Almond about transfers to the schools from outside those districts, Dennis said Locust has 48 active transfers and Stanfield has 22.

Almond asked about putting students back in their home districts. Dennis said it was in the school’s transfer policy that if a transfer happens and the class size is too large, those students would revert back to their school.

“We’re building that addition to relieve the overcrowding at the two schools, then our board is tasked with, coming up soon, the needs based grant,” board member Glenda Gibson said.

Board member Dustin Lisk said Stanly was “way behind in facility construction, new construction and renovation. It’s good for taxpayers for us to apply for these grants.”

“Our high priority is going to be that addition at West Stanly Middle, and the high priority of building a new Oakboro school.”

Gibson noted the recommendations for Endy comes based on a study produced for Stanly County Schools by Numerix, an outside consulting firm.

The board also is considering changes to the transfer policy, speaking at length about it during Monday’s meeting.

“There’s just going to have to be some strategic and strict situations,” Poplin said about transfers.

She later added, “I have a little heartburn over the fact that we’re not considering pulling (students) because if we’re really redistricting the western area and we’re going to stick to those districts, we need to adhere to that.”

Gibson said “it’s always hard when you have those transfer appeals, but where we are right now, I don’t know that we can grant transfers to any of these schools: Endy, Locust, Stanfield.”

Dennis said 80 students received transfers last year.

Lisk said a new elementary school in Oakboro “can really alleviate a lot of the western-end crowding.”

Whittaker said the school board “can’t control growth in our county because we’re already behind the 8-ball, we’re always going to be playing catch-up.”

She agreed with Poplin about strictness with transfers to the three schools in question, and said SCS has to redistrict.

“We don’t have a choice. We built a new 10-classroom addition, and we have to redistrict. The questions is where those lines are, but in doing that and moving students, which is not an easy thing to do and it’s not something our county does often…but it would make it easier today if it were something we were doing in the past,” Whittaker said.

Board member Bill Sorensen mentioned vacant Ridgecrest School, saying the school “is in that general vicinity out there.” He said with a new Oakboro school five years away at a minimum, Ridgecrest could “take some of the spill” of increased student numbers in the western area.

Almond agreed.

“Once everything is cleared up, then I think (opening Ridgecrest) would be more beneficial for the western end of the county…I’m just not comfortable having to redo this and revisit it. It causes too much chaos for working parents.”