Elizabeth-Pasquotank Schools has released new school zones for students who attend Pasquotank Elementary, which will close this summer and reopen in 2025 as the district’s new early learning center.
Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Schools Superintendent Keith Parker discussed the new school zones at a public hearing in the multipurpose room at Pasquotank Elementary, Monday evening. The new zones only apply to students currently enrolled or who will enroll at Pasquotank Elementary next year and are effective with the start of the 2024-25 school year in August.
According to a map of the new school zones, the area around Coast Guard Base Elizabeth City and north of Weeksville Road will be rezoned for Weeksville Elementary.
Students who live in the Meadlowlands subdivision, which is located off Peartree Road, will also begin classes next year at Weeksville Elementary. That decision was based on the fact that students who live on the other side of Peartree Road already attend Weeksville Elementary, Parker said.
The area of the county that includes the Queenswood subdivision will be rezoned for Central Elementary, and the area between the DeBry community and north to Tatem Lane is being rezoned for P.W. Moore. And finally, children who live in the area from Tatem Lane to Speed Street will enroll at J.C. Sawyer Elementary, which is located a few blocks away off Park Street.
Just one person signed up to speak at Monday night’s public hearing, but he declined when the school board denied his request to speak longer than the three minutes allowed. The person did not say what it was he wanted to discuss.
Pasquotank Elementary will be closed and converted to an early childhood learning center, Parker announced in early March. The district will close the school this summer and begin renovating the building for use as the district’s centralized pre-kindergarten program, which will open in 2025. The program is currently housed at Sheep-Harney Elementary and includes 10 classes of pre-K students.
Parker announced the plan while meeting with parents at Pasquotank Elementary School’s media center in early March. The sweeping change is necessary because in the last decade, the district’s enrollment has declined by almost 1,000 students.
“Some of this relates to population trends but it also leads to the fact that in 2024, unlike a decade ago, parents have far more options where they send their child to school,” Parker said Monday. “So we had to come to terms with the fact that our enrollment patterns have changed and as a result we receive less funding for our students and to operate our schools. And that requires us to think differently.”
Because of declining enrollment and the reduction in state funding, the district does not have the money to operate its 13 schools to potential, Parker said. Another cost consideration is the capital investments that will be needed to renovate the district’s aging schools.
“We also have to think about the fact that the majority of our schools were built before the 1960s,” Parker said. Those schools “will require in the next decade a significant investment in capital funds to be able to renovate those facilities.”
The school district currently operates seven elementary schools. Pasquotank Elementary is located off Peartree Road and P.W. Moore Elementary is located one street away off Roanoke Avenue.
Parker said he is not aware of any other school district in the state where two schools that serve grades K-5 are located so close together.
Four of the seven elementary schools — Sheep-Harney, P.W. Moore, J.C. Sawyer and Pasquotank — are concentrated in the vicinity of the downtown area.
In essence, the fewer the number of students enrolled in the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank schools the fewer state dollars the district receives. The state funds the district based on student enrollment. A lower enrollment results in a reduction in state funding. The state funds the salaries of teachers, staff and administrators, while the county covers building repairs and maintenance costs. The district also receives some additional funding from the federal government.
Parker’s new plan allows the district to consolidate its pre-kindergarten program into one learning center. In North Carolina, pre-K programs are funded separately from how K-12 schools are funded. Increasing the number of pre-K students at the new learning center would have no bearing on how much state funding the district’s K-12 schools receive, Parker has said.
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