Board of Education to consider closure of Uwharrie Ridge

ASHEBORO — The Randolph County School System could potentially close Uwharrie Ridge Six-Twelve following the conclusion of the 2025-26 school year.

At the Randolph County Schools Board of Education’s February meeting, superintendent Stephen Gainey presented the board with a study the district had conducted on the feasibility of the school.

The study focused primarily on the facts that the school has had declining enrollment, hasn’t met academic performance standards and is at a high cost to the district in a time of budgetary constraints.

“It’s a thorough study, primarily focused on the welfare of the children should the school be closed,” Gainey said.

The study found that the enrollment numbers at the school have steadily decreased since 2021 and based on the OREd 10-Year Student Enrollment Forecast completed by the Institute for Transportation Research and Education at North Carolina State, the enrollment isn’t expected to trend positively in the coming years.

“The school opened in 2002-2003 with a capacity of 660 and it has never reached its capacity,’ Gainey said. “The need and demand for Uwharrie Ridge Six-Twelve has declined significantly since the start of this program in 2017-2018.”

Furthermore, the school has received a low-performing designation and failed to reach growth measures in every year of state accountability data since 2017-18.

According to Gainey, the closing of Uwharrie Ridge would see reassignments to both Southwestern Randolph Middle School and Southwestern Randolph High School. The expectation is that those schools would help students academically, he said.

“We’ve got plenty of room to bring students in,” Gainey said.

Gainey also stated that Uwharrie Ridge students would have access to all the same middle school programming, and high school students would gain access to AP courses as well as more CTE options, but would lose some of the specialized programs unique to the school.

Finally, the district anticipates savings around $1.3 million per year with the closing.

“If we close Uwharrie Ridge, the state and local resources will follow the kids,” Gainey said. “The teachers at Uwharrie Ridge will be moved to vacant positions in the school system and there would be savings which could benefit our entire school system in light of the reduction in funding from the state.”

While the superintendent admitted that there would be some difficulties faced by parents and students around things such as transportation, he still felt that the best recommendation was to close the school as “closure would not cause significant hardships to current students in grades 6-11.”

“This is nothing about the teachers, this is nothing about the kids, this is nothing about the community,” Gainey said. “It’s a wonderful place, but I don’t know how we can keep operating this when we continue to get handed reduced funding from the state. We have got to make hard decisions and my job is to bring you options.”

The board will hold a public hearing on the matter at 6 p.m. March 9.

Following that, the board would be able to make a decision on whether to close the school, although that decision must be based on “what is in the educational interest of the whole school system.”

“Every year, for the last four years, it seems that we have conversations on what we can do to fix it and make it work better,” board chair Gary Cook said. “That’s been a major conversation piece for this board and I can tell you it hasn’t been taken lightly. We’ve fought hard for it.”

Board member Tracy Boyles said: “Over the last several years, the charter schools and the private schools have hurt the southwest area more than any other district in the county, by far. Out of the students we’ve lost to those schools, probably 70% of them are from that area. I fought for Uwharrie Ridge as hard as anybody has. It’s like a home for me, but again, I have this job to do, too.”

The Randolph County Schools Board of Education will next meet March 9.