The Joint Capital/Facilities Committee – a body consisting of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners and Guilford County Board of Education – has scheduled a meeting for Tuesday, Jan. 28, and it should be a very interesting one indeed.
In the last four years, Guilford County voters have approved $2 billion in school bond money, which the commissioners have been shoveling over to the school system. Yet something is going wrong somewhere because – just to take the highest profile example, Page High School – which was supposed to get a complete rebuild but now is only slated for repairs – missed school days earlier this month because the school’s heating and air conditioning broke down and took a long time to fix.
When the school board came under fire from a very displeased group of parents and students who showed up in numbers at a January Board of Education meeting, some school board members pointed the finger of blame at the county commissioners and told the people to speak to the commissioners about the problem.
At the Board of Education meeting, School Board Member David Coates said: “I hope that the Page people show up at the county meetings and let them know what’s going on. I’d like to say the buck stops here, but it doesn’t entirely.”
School Board Member T. Dianne Bellamy Small said, “I hope staff will work with us, based on what Mr. Coates just said, to jointly advocate to our county commissioners to get off the money.”
Guilford County Commissioners were of course very displeased since the commissioners have, again, been absolutely shoveling money to the school system, and the problems with heating and air at Page have nothing to do with the commissioners.
After school officials encouraged those who were upset to go to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners meeting, which a large group of them did on Thursday, Jan. 9, the last meeting of the Board of Commissioners.
The coming joint meeting will take place at 3 p.m. at the former Truist Building at 201 W. Market St. in downtown Greensboro.
The discussion will no doubt focus on the use of the current $2 billion in bond money, but there may be more school bond money on the horizon and perhaps school board members will bring up the needs that can’t be met by the current $2 billion in funding.
Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston said this week that, even though the county has passed bond referendums totaling $2 billion for Guilford County Schools’ capital projects and repairs in the last four years, it’s very likely a new round of school bonds will be needed in the next two or three years.
Page High School isn’t alone: A lot of other major planned school projects got sliced off as well, making many parents and students very dismayed.
Alston said the facilities study was done a half dozen years ago and the increased price of construction materials and labor after the schools’ needs study was conducted meant that many of the hoped-for projects included in the $2 billion could no longer be undertaken.
Therefore, he said, another round of bond money may be needed.
Those who wish to watch the Jan. 28 meeting of the two boards can do so on Zoom by going to https://www.zoomgov.com/j/1613174016, completing the webinar registration, selecting the option to join from the confirmation email prior to the meeting start and choosing one of the following audio options: (1) Use your computer, tablet or smartphone’s speaker or (2) Select “Use Telephone” after joining the webinar, call (646) 828-7666 and entering the webinar ID 161 317 4016, if asked to do so.
