The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school board voted Tuesday to reduce the square footage of the long-awaited future Ashley Elementary.
The topic also prompted heated conversations about potential school closures.
Community members have been advocating for a new Ashley Elementary School for years due to issues with mold and air quality in the current building.
Their hope was that the new school would also serve as a hub for various health resources and services, to which many East Winston residents lack access.
Under the original project designs, the new Ashley was going to be much larger than standard schools in the state. But that size comes with a higher cost, which began raising concerns last year amid the district’s financial crisis.
At the board’s most recent meeting, district officials proposed cutting roughly 20,000 square feet. Executive Director of Construction and Planning Darrell Walker explained where the reductions would be.
“These are really kind of the coat closet and the food pantry type services, though we think that there's plenty of room within the building to continue to have those services," he said.
The school board voted to approve the proposed reductions, allowing the construction company to come up with a new cost estimate. But the conversation about this project led to another topic: consolidations.
Susan Miller raised concerns about building a new school while enrollment was declining. Then Richard Watts questioned why schools located downtown weren’t under the same scrutiny.
“The other schools are already existing. We're not planning on building them," Miller said. "They're already there. This is a brand new project.”
“This is a brand new project that’s been over 20 years in the making, and we still have not kept a promise to the community," Watts said.
Vice Chair Alex Bohannon said the board will need to have conversations about school closures, but that they should consider historical context.
"We need to make sure that we're not spending excess dollars on buildings that continue to not be utilized to their fullest extent," Bohannon said. "That also has to be balanced with the historical recognition of the fact that, the reality is that certain communities within this system have been ignored or not invested into the same ways."
Other Triad districts have also been grappling with school closures recently, including Randolph and Guilford counties.