THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 18, 1995 TAG: 9504180287
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Short : 39 lines
Pasquotank County Commissioners on Monday voted to purchase slightly more than 50 acres of land just south of Elizabeth City for a new middle school.
The county will enter a contract to buy the River Road property, known as the Pecan Farm, for $8,000 an acre, from brothers C.O., C.H. and W.B. Robinson.
The parcel was the least expensive of 10 tracts studied in the last three months, and is convenient because it is near sewer facilities, commissioners said. The property falls within the city's service area.
Selecting a site for the new school allows the county to proceed with environmental studies and meet other requirements necessary to borrow for the building project.
The second middle school is part of a long-range construction plan that includes renovations to several existing schools and a shift in the grade levels handled by elementaries.
When the new middle school opens, officials intend to take the sixth-graders from the elementaries and place them in a sixth-to-eighth-grade structure at the middle schools. The move will mirror a trend in educational grouping under the middle school concept and will help solve overcrowding problems throughout the district.
Middle school construction is estimated at more than $10 million and is expected to be covered by about $24 million the county plans to borrow for the next few years of school construction and renovation.
Officials have said the need for a new high school will quickly become a pressing issue, as well. But they are delaying plans for that project until they can identify funding sources. by CNB