Nakina Alternative School given new assignment

By FULLER ROYAL
Staff Writer

Applause broke out Monday night when the nine-year-old Nakina Alternative School was officially closed by the unanimous vote of the Columbus County Board of Education.

More than 150 residents of the Nakina, Guideway and Old Dock communities were present in the Nakina Alternative School gym for a two-in-one public hearing concerning the closing of the school and its reopening in one year as Nakina Middle School.

Superintendent Dan Strickland explained to the audience the reasons for the schools closure ­– primarily the reorganization of the alternative school into separate alternative academies at each of the county’s three high schools.

Middle schools that feed into each high school will send their behavior problems to those high schools’ alternative academies.

Strickland said the move is part of a larger plan to redesign high schools, which have been following the same basic model since the 1920s and 1930s.

Strickland went on to explain the need for Nakina Alternative School as a middle school.
Old Dock Elementary and Guideway Elementary schools are already overflowing with students in grades kindergarten through eight. Recently announced housing projects and subdivisions that could add hundreds of new families to the area would worsen already cramped quarters at the schools.

If Nakina is made into a middle school, the sixth, seventh and eighth grades at both schools would be housed there, leaving the kindergarten through fifth grades to expand into the old middle school classrooms.

County schools attorney Bill Phipps conducted the public hearing and asked for public comment, first on the issue of closing the school.
Nakina resident Haroldean Register said he didn’t think there was an issue with closing the schools, which brought laughter from the crowd.
Phipps asked if anyone had comments on the conversion of Nakina to a middle school. Register said he didn’t think that was an issue either.

As the school board passed a vote to close the school, two women – both the mothers of daughters who attend West Columbus High School – rose to voice their concerns about the alternative school closing.

Prett Dudney said she didn’t think it was a good idea to send alternative students back to WCHS. She said she is worried that there could be reprisals against students who were the victims of students assigned to the alternative school.

Phipps assured her that the alternative school students, especially those at WCHS, will not come in any contact with regular students.
Alternative academy students will be delivered and picked up from the only door they will use all day.

WCHS’s alternate academy is on the floor beneath the gymnasium in the rear of the school.
“They are totally isolated,” Phipps said.

He pointed out that the freshman academy that WCHS implemented last year created a dramatic drop in discipline problems among freshmen.

Strickland said that the students will not associate at all with regular students.

WCHS mother Julie Shaw, wanted to know if there would be additional resource officers.

Phipps said that would be up to the board. Board Chairman Norris Ebron said that the resource officers are Sheriff’s Deputies and can call on any deputy for assistance.

Dudney wanted to know who determines which students go to the alternative school.

She said her daughter witnessed a theft by a boy of the contents of another girl’s pocketbook and that she “did the right thing” by reporting it.

Dudney said that all her daughter got for her trouble was a threat from the boy that he would “kill her.”

The boy is still a student at WCHS.

“What can you do about protecting our children against these students?” she asked the board.

“If you can’t protect our children now, what prevents (this boy) from shooting our daughter,” she asked, adding that he could easily hide a gun in his baggy pants.

She said that WCHS Principal Mark Brown was of no help.

Phipps told the women they could appeal any principal’s decision to the school obard.

Phipps added that with the alternative academies based at the high schools, principals would be much more attuned to the issues that arise.

Shaw said that they had filed complaints and the situation had not been corrected.

“I’ve tried,” Shaw said. “My daughter has three more years there.”

Phipps said that Dudney and Shaw’s concerns were valid but did not pertain to the reason for the hearing, which was the closing of Nakina.
A third speaker from the audience, Missy Hannah, wanted to know if the alternative students at each school were subject to searches.
Strickland said yes and added that they would also have to wear uniforms.

The board then voted to re-open Nakina in the fall of 2008 as a middle school.

Retired educator Lofton Cox then addressed the board.

“I think I speak for all here when I day we are tickled to death that Nakina will be a middle school,” he said. “I’d like to see this different from the other middle schools. I’d like to see an academically gifted program here. If we are going to get them ready for college, then this is something we need to do for the kids.”

Cox said that school system has a chance to create something new at Nakina.

“This is going to pull two good communities back together to produce one of the best middle schools we’ve ever had,” said retired educator J.D. Gore, after the meeting. “Everybody you saw here tonight loves this place.”

“This has been a dream of mine for years,” said former Columbus County Commissioner and area resident Mike Richardson.

Three boys were on hand for the hearing, having just finished baseball practice. All three will be students at the new middle school next year.

Twelve year-old Cameron Suggs, a seventh grader; Jody Harrelson, 11 and a sixth grader and Quinland Hammond, another 11-year-old sixth grader, all said they are looking forward to the new school.

Hammond said it will not be as crowded as it is at Old Dock.

The school can’t open this year primarily because of the extensive and costly work needed for the school’s sewer to meet state regulations.
The school’s kitchen has to be rebuilt and re-equipped from scratch and while the classrooms are in good shape, there is still quite a bit of work to be done, Strickland said.