Dr. Melanie Taylor visits with a member of our internal task force

Sheri has worked hard to gather information to help us get a better picture, here's a good bit of the information that she has collected on a variety of relevant topics....

1) No recommendation has been made as to what school will house the IB High School Diploma. The rumor that you hear about South Iredell is just that, a rumor. What was stated was if a decision had to be done immediately then a large number of the board would like to house the High School Diploma program at one location and that would be SIHS.


2) Mount Mourne's capacity for students is 550 pupils. This is a lower number than when it was an elementary school because of the size of the kids and supplies needed. We are currently at 408 and will be at 538 if Jason brings in 130 more students.

3) The County never stated that the High School Diploma Program would be housed at MMIB. They stated that the Middle Years Diploma would be at MMIB.
4) Current the county is talking about combining the 2 programs into one location. Statesville currently has a couple of magnet schools and they don't want to add to that. Lake Norman is overcrowded. They are adding a new program (Career Technical Center) which would be located near SIHS which would help with transportation costs.

5) It was stated that if the program grows then they could consider 2 locations. This does not mean that they won't consider 2 locations now just that it may not be feasible. Money and Capacity of schools may limit this. However, a couple of board members would prefer 2 locations.

6) School Size Capacity

MMIB- 550 Currently- 408
LNHS- 2000- Currently- about 1900
SIHS- 1780- Currently- just under 1000
Statesville HS- 1600- around 1000?

7) Interesting fact... If IB did not open then the county would have been forced to redistrict because of over-crowding. By Coddle Creek Elementary housing 6th grade and IB opening, Brawely is better off. With the IB High School kids here it reduces population and classroom's need at high school. This is expected to hold off redistricting for 3-5 years. This was the decision of an outside redistricting company that was looking at redistricting LNHS with Route 150 being the cut off for attendence.

8) For MMIB to house the whole program for our students the costs came back at 1/2 million dollars because of the renting and purchasing of trailers.

9) Primary concern for the county is that such a small number of students at a small school may not have the proper facilities for the classes or be able to offer enough classes for the students.