Davie High School Capacity Review Excites Debate on Overcrowding

By Michael Hewlett, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.

Nov. 19–MOCKSVILLE

Who knew that one number could stir so much debate? But in Davie County, it has. The number in question is the capacity at Davie County High School.

School officials have said for years that the capacity is 1,320 — a problem since enrollment has grown to nearly 1,900 students, prompting a push for a second high school that ultimately failed this year.

So many people kept questioning the capacity number that school superintendent Robert Landry, who was hired this summer, asked William Whaley, the county’s director of facilities management, to study the issue.

Landry said he wanted to end the debate.

According to Whaley, the school is a little bigger than school officials have been saying, large enough to hold between 1,500 and 1,600 students.

For many who opposed a recent $37 million bond referendum to build a second high school, the new figures are a vindication. They never believed that the school was as overcrowded as school officials said it was.

But school officials say that the new figures don’t change anything. The high school is still overcrowded, with about 20 mobile classrooms, congested hallways and five lunch periods, they say.

The school board is now looking at a plan to realign grade levels and move more than 500 ninth-grade students out of the high school and into the school system’s three middle schools. The plan would require a new elementary school that could cost up to $12 million.

On Nov. 5, Bill Foust, a member of Davie Citizens for a Responsible Government, which lobbied against the bond, told the Davie County Board of Education that the 1,320 capacity number was fabricated.

"Davie County voters feel confident that you knew all along that the DHS student capacity number of 1,320 was wrong," he told the board.

Several school-board members balked, saying they never misled anyone and that regardless of the new figure, the high school remains severely overcrowded.

"Nobody fabricated a number," said Carol Livengood, a school-board member. "We didn’t pull a number out of the air."

The two capacity figures were derived by different calculations.

School officials used a formula from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction that took the number of classrooms and multiplied that by the average number of students per classroom, said W.G. "Dub" Potts, a former superintendent and the school system’s director of operations.

Davie High School has 66 classrooms, and the state uses an average of 20 students per classroom. That equals 1,320.

In his report, Whaley said that determining the capacity at 1,320 ignores several factors. The school, including two gymnasiums and band, choral and drama areas, is about 93,000 square feet, he said in the report.

"Consideration of teacher allocations, special programs, scheduling and class offerings play a large part in the student capacity of the high school," he said in the report.

Landry said that programs dictate the number of students in a classroom. For example, school officials can’t put 25 students who are in an exceptional children’s program in one classroom because the state doesn’t allow it, he said.

Foust said that the new figures prove that the school is merely congested and not overcrowded. Steve Ridenhour, another bond opponent, said he remembers the halls being congested when he was a high-school student in the early 1970s.

"I think it’s very important to make sure you have an accurate number," Ridenhour said. "We got to make sure that anything we do in this county or any other county, that you can justify it when you’re taking taxpayers dollars for it."

Livengood said she just doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about.

"We’re still overcrowded," she said.

— Michael Hewlett can be reached at 727-7326 or at mhewlett@wsjournal.com.

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