DANBURY — Stokes County Schools was not among the districts to win a state lottery-funded grant, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction announced Wednesday .
Stokes was one of 122 applicants requesting a total of $1.78 billion for school construction, renovation projects and other capital improvements.
Seven county school districts will share more than $360 million awarded under the Needs-Based Public School Captial Fund: Edgecombe, Graham, Hyde, Jackson, Martin, Sampson and Swain.
Stokes County Schools had applied for a $42 million grant to build a new King Elementary School on the same property as the existing school.
Superintendent Brad Rice informed the Board of Education at their meeting Monday, Oct. 7 that he had received word unofficially that Stokes did not win the grant.
The grant applications are scored according to a set of criteria, and Rice said he’d been unofficially told that two primary factors knocked Stokes out of the running.
The first involved the fact that the school districts are ranked in levels according to need. Stokes County Schools are ranked at “tier 2”, and “tier 3” districts were given priority.
Rice said he was told unofficially that schools involving consolidation were ranked higher.
While the 2024 Stokes County grant application referenced the fact that two elementary schools had been closed and consolidated, it did not include plans to consolidate Pinnacle Elementary School into the new King Elementary School, as the 2023 grant application had done.
The 2023 grant application for was not approved by county officials and therefore never submitted to NC DPI.
Since official results had not yet been released at the time of the meeting, the Board and administration held off on detailed discussion regarding plans for the future.
Meadowbrook Academy name change approved
The Board of Education unanimously approved a new name and mascot for Meadowbrook Academy, which will be moving from its current location on Meadowbrook Drive into the Lawsonville Elementary School building in January 2025.
The school will be called Stokes County Academy and the mascot will be the Phoenix.
A committee formed to oversee the name change unanimously recommended the change, Assistant Superintendent Jared Jones told the school board during the Oct. 7 meeting.
The committee considered the new name most appropriate since the school serves the entire county, Jones said.
Meadowbrook staff and students were also consulted regarding a new mascot. What’s now known as the Meadowbrook Academy Eagles, with red and gold colors, will be changed to the Stokes County Academy Phoneix with colors of black and red.
“The phoenix represents renewal and a fresh start,” Jones said. “They felt like that would be appropriate for that change.”
The name and mascot changes will be effective Jan. 1, 2025.
The Board discussed having students design the new logo and potentially hosting a tour and fellowship event before the end of the year to celebrate the move and the rebranding.
Cost-saving financial agreement with Forsyth Tech approved
The school board unanimously approved an amended Memorandum of Understanding between Stokes County Schools and Forsyth Technical Community College that caps the local school district’s contribution toward the liaison’s salary and benefits at $40,000.
Forsyth Tech will be responsible for covering the remainder of the liaison’s salary and benefits beyond the $40,000.
The costs associated with the position that connects the community college and Stokes Early College have risen but funding has stayed the same, Rice explained.
The amended agreement will save the school district about $15,000 immediately, Rice said.
It was suggested that the cost savings could be used to fund more tutoring at Stokes Early College, which was one of the requests made by students at the Sept. 23 meeting.
Among other business, the Board of Education:
• Heard budget updates and discussed capital improvements.
• Discussed revisions to the quorum policy made by School Attorney Fred Johnson. The updated policy states that a board member participating remotely is not deemed to be present for determining the existence of a quorum. A quorum, defined as a majority of the members of the board present at a meeting, is required for an action of the board to be valid. The Board will likely vote on the revised policy in the consent agenda of the next meeting.
• In the consent agenda, the Board approved regular session minutes for the Sept. 23 meeting.
• Personnel and coaching were approved.
The next meeting of the Board of Education is scheduled for Oct. 21 at 6 p.m. at the administrative office on Main Street in Danbury. The meeting will also be live streamed on the district YouTube channel.
A previous version of this story incorrectly identified the day the NC Department of Instruction announced the grant winners. The statement was released Wednesday, Oct. 9.
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