Alamance-Burlington school board members voted 4-3 Monday night for superintendent Dr. Dain Butler’s proposal to keep seven attendance zones for the high schools across the county.
Butler’s plan will allow Cummings and Graham high schools, which had been scheduled to become specialty schools – Cummings as a school for the arts and Graham for a skilled trades/academy/early college – to remain traditional high schools, although they will both have scaled-back specialty programs.
The vote effectively scraps the plan to convert Cummings and Graham into specialty schools eliminating the Cummings and Graham attendance zones, and having five traditional high schools and five new high school attendance zones.
The specialty school of the arts at Cummings High School would have been for grades six through 12; the skilled trades academy/early college at Graham High School would have been for grades nine through 12.
The 2017 high school redistricting plan had divided the four existing high schools (Eastern, Southern, Williams, and Western) and the future high school (now designated as Southeast) into five attendance zones.
However, two separate surveys done by the school system found little or no interest among ABSS parents for having their child/children attend either of the specialty schools.
Voting to direct the superintendent to proceed with developing the seven attendance districts were chairman Sandy Ellington-Graves and school board members Wayne Beam, Donna Westbrooks, and Ryan Bowden. Voting against were vice chairman Patsy Simpson and board members Allison Gant and Tony Rose.
Attendance maps and zones will be presented at a future school board meeting.
