Bill remaking Nash school board clears NC Senate
Republican lawmakers pushed changes to the Nash County school board through the state Senate Thursday over objections from the school board’s majority and chamber Democrats.
Senate Bill 248 would shrink the board from 11 members to seven, redraw the board’s election districts and install a new deadline for the Nash and Edgecombe county school systems to finish their plan to shift roughly 1,700 students from Nash schools to Edgecombe.
These are students who live in the Edgecombe County portion of Rocky Mount.
This de-merger has been in the planning stages for some time. The bill adds a Nov. 15 deadline for the two school boards and the Nash and Edgecombe county commissions to submit a transition plan to the state. If they can’t agree, the State Board of Education would come up with a plan, according to the bill.
The measure cleared the state Senate Thursday on a party-line vote, 27-17. It now heads to the North Carolina House for more debate.
The bill would dictate that Nash school board elections be held using the same election districts as Nash County Board of Commissioners elections. The school board, in an 8-3 vote earlier this month, opposed the plan, saying it should be allowed to set its own district lines.
The Rocky Mount City Council is also against the change, according to a letter from the city manager, which Sen. Kandie Smith, D-Edgecombe, distributed to senators Thursday.
Smith tried to amend the bill Thursday, but Republican lawmakers defeated her proposals.
Under the bill, Nash County would elect seven school board members in 2024, three to two-year terms and four to four-year terms so that future elections would be staggered. After that first election under the new system, all terms would last four years.
School board elections would remain nonpartisan.
