Paul Clark writes in this week’s Rhino:
…Northern Guilford Middle School, which cost $21 million to build in 2005 and won the national 2008 award for best energy-sustainable school in the country, is using almost twice as much energy as another green school, Reedy Fork Elementary School, built the next year for $13 million.
Guilford County Schools Executive Director of Facilities and Construction Andy LaRowe said, “It does not appear that Northern Middle School is performing to meet its expectations.”
Clark also notes that Northern Guilford Middle School “was one of the financial disasters of Guilford County Schools’ 2003 bond program” that ran out of funds for a new Jamestown Middle School, which would later appear on the $412 million bond passed in 2008. Now Guilford County commissioners are asking voters to approve a quarter-cent sales tax hike to help service that debt.
Expensive schools —-that’s the connection to Watauga County sales-tax vote tomorrow. No doubt Guilford commissioners will be carefully watching that vote. Then again —knowing our commissioners ——maybe they won’t.
