RCSS to transition to own conference for middle school athletics

ASHEBORO — The Randolph County School System will be moving to its own conference for middle school athletics starting in the 2026-27 season.

At its Aug. 18 regular business meeting, the Randolph County Schools Board of Education approved the realignment following discussion amongst the board.

“We clearly have enough middle schools in our school system to have our own athletic conference,” superintendent Stephen Gainey said.

Currently, there are three members of the conference that are not part of the Randolph County School System: North Asheboro Middle School, South Asheboro Middle School and Uwharrie Charter Academy.

Gainey stated he had been approached many times over the possible restructuring, hence the conversation being brought up before the board.

“From a budget standpoint, we need to keep as much money in the Randolph County School System as we can,” board member Fred Burgess said. “I’d rather have two of our middle schools play each other again for a second time and keep the revenue there then split it with another school system.”

A few board members also pointed to this as a way to potentially reduce students transferring or being recruited to different districts.

“Whether we want to admit it or not, we’re in this era of school choice and you can’t come back from it,” Burgess said. “We need to do things that protect the Randolph County School System whenever we can.”

Board member Shannon Whitaker said, “At some point we have to take a stand and we have to make some changes, whether it’s this year or next year.”

The board discussed potentially restructuring as soon as this school year, but with how close the year is to starting, the board felt it was best to push it out to next year.

“If this were April or May, I would be saying let’s have a conference with just our schools in it,” Burgess said. “I don’t want to see kids not play, though. The season (has) kind of started with practices and things like that, so I don’t want to do that.”

However, the board decided that all postseason games this year will be held only at Randolph County Schools sites.

Grant funds received

The board was also notified that the district received the North Carolina Stronger Connections Grant totaling more than $182,000.

“We wrote this grant to be used to increase SRO services, particularly for our elementary schools to reduce, significantly, the student to SRO ratio,” said Beth Davis, director of federal programs. “This is a special, competitive grant that comes out of Title IV in the Safe and Healthy components.”

The additional SROs will be implemented at 17 of the district’s 31 schools.

“I want to say a big thank you to Beth because this is an additional resource for us and she found it, went after it and that’s why we have it,” Gainey said. “First of all, to do it, we have to give the Sheriff’s Office time to recruit and train additional SROs. They’re ready to move, but it will take a little bit of time before we get this grant in place.”

Davis said the grant lasts through September 2026, but there’s no guarantee that the funding will be available again following that.

“It really depends on what the federal government does,” Davis said. “This is a special, bipartisan approved grant that has been out there for a couple of years. So if they were to continue it, we could continue to apply for it.”

The Randolph County Schools Board of Education will next meet Sept. 15.