The plans for a permanent facility for Isaac Bear Early College High School remain on pause, and it appears that its community of students and parents will have to wait longer. The price tag for a proposed 44,000-square-foot building — upward of $50 million — was not included in the upcoming $320 million school bond slated for the November ballot, and there are no current plans for county commissioners or the legislature to pick up the tab.
Isaac Bear is a specialty high school, created in 2005, where students in ninth and tenth grade receive instruction mainly from New Hanover County Schools teachers, then matriculate into UNCW courses in their final two years. There are 133 students, mainly freshmen and sophomores, taking classes in a small modular unit, but the overall population is 259, including students taking their college classes.
Shortly after its founding, Isaac Bear moved to its current building, the “learning cottage,” as school community leaders call it, on UNCW’s campus. It has eight classrooms and 10 teachers, and two staff members float between those rooms, providing career technical education and Spanish instruction.
26-year veteran educator Ron Villines has been the principal of Isaac Bear for the last six years and said he’s “disappointed” that funding for the school hasn’t been found.
While he said finding the funds for the building is a real issue, the staff and students still remain motivated and high-achieving.
“My students come in, they give me their best; I got the best staff that I think in the state of North Carolina. I mean, we all work hard in this cottage. If I look at just our last EOC [end of course tests], we're 100% proficient in Math I, we're 96% proficient in Math III, and we are 98% proficient in English II. We are 97% in Biology. So we're hitting our marks,” he said.
But the ‘learning cottage,’ as Villines insists the students and staff call it, not ‘a trailer,’ is showing its age. He said he’s recently had to fix the flooring and holes in the wall, and he worries about rain because it tends to seep into classrooms.
Villines said he was a part of the planning sessions around the school. The district even produced a 73-page report, with input from faculty, parents, and students. Republican State Senator Michael Lee procured $1 million for the facility study for the building, which was one of the rationales for him winning UNCW’s last Razor Walker Award.
“We decided on the contractor; we had the architect; we had the plans, we had where it goes on campus, and then it kind of just went away,” Villines said.
What contributed to this, he said, was school districts across the state tightening their financial belts post-pandemic.
By state statute, New Hanover County is responsible for capital projects for the school system, but Isaac Bear didn’t make the cut for the school bond recommendations from a joint county and school district committee. In September 2025, the school was #5 on the recommended list for funding; however, the addition of Porters Neck Elementary ended up surpassing it, likely because of a much lower price tag of $7.6 million.
Democratic New Hanover County Commissioner Stephanie Walker, who previously served on the school board, was on the ad hoc committee to plan for the school’s future. She said she’s now in talks with NHCS Superintendent Dr. Christopher Barnes and UNCW Chancellor Aswani Volety about finding other solutions for Isaac Bear.
“I did talk about how old the trailers are, and how great the program is, and I really do feel like we can figure out a solution, and it may not be what the original idea was, because that looks like that is going to be a harder thing to do, and unless somebody wants to step up with $50 million plus dollars,” she said.
Walker said of the legislature’s $1-million investment in the plans, “I would like to think it wasn't a waste, but it doesn't look like it can happen unless we can figure out where to come up with that money to build that actual building.”
On the issue of Isaac Bear not making it onto the list of school bond projects, Villines said it's understandable, but maintains that Isaac Bear has needs as well.
“We only have 259 kids, and it's only 133 here in our facility, and so I can see the bigger needs for New Hanover High School, or some of the other things that's on the bond, I can see the need for that, but we've been needing this for 20 years now, and you can see it slowly falling apart,” he said.
What makes the situation more precarious is that, as of June 30, 2027, UNCW’s agreement to reserve the land for the school system for the proposed building expires. According to a UNCW spokesperson, there are no current plans to change this date.
“We're just waiting. I just don't see [a solution] in sight right now. I get tired of getting my teachers and my staff excited about, we're gonna get a building, and then just having to tell them, saying, ‘No, it's not coming yet,” Villines said.
NHCS Assistant Superintendent Dr. Rob Morgan confirmed this, and sent a statement through a district spokesperson on the status of the building,
“There is no confirmed timeline regarding project funding, and I am not aware of any specific allocation for the facility within the current state budget. Based on discussions to date, there does not appear to be opposition to the project moving forward if funding becomes available. However, an estimated timeframe for potential next steps has not been established," Morgan's statement read.
However, Chair of NHCS Finance, Capital and Bond Committee Republican Pat Bradford said there was an “ad hoc committee to study the Isaac Bear Early College building situation. It hit a wall. Dr. Barnes also researched. As did I. What I found there is not an appetite in the community to build a building on land we don't own.”
Barnes said to WHQR in a recent interview, “With all that we have on our plate, with the [school] bond and everything else, I am still concerned about building a building that we don't own, on land we don't own.”
He added that NHCS doesn’t lease any of its buildings — and then called into question what would happen if an emergency arose with the school building, wondering who would be responsible for fixing it.
Under the current arrangement, UNCW fixes anything related to the structure of the Isaac Bear building, and NHCS is responsible for fixing equipment within it.
It’s not a new issue. In 2019, it was already a common refrain that NHCS can’t build on land it doesn’t own.’ At the time, Van Dempsey, dean of Watson College, which oversaw Isaac Bear from UNCW’s side of things, noted there were a couple of options, including deeding land from UNCW to the school district, a long-term lease, or other more innovative funding arrangements.
Allison Childs is a parent of an Isaac Bear student. She said the school’s community has been left in the dark about what comes next for the school’s future.
She sent a statement to WHQR, which read in part, “According to NCDPI’s newly released Teacher Working Conditions Survey, Isaac Bear ranks at the bottom for facility maintenance and safety, leaving students and staff in a trailer long past its intended lifespan. The school has no library, no dedicated cafeteria, and teachers must share classroom space—conditions that would be unacceptable and unsafe in any other setting.”
Childs added that, “The community deserves a definitive answer rather than continued uncertainty or being asked to support a school bond that failed to include this program in its planning. Remaining in limbo is worse than hearing the outcome, which now feels increasingly unlikely.”
As for Senator Lee’s thoughts on the building’s status, he sent a statement through a spokesperson, which read, “Our understanding is that UNCW and New Hanover County Schools remain in regular communication about the Isaac Bear property, and that UNCW intends to continue working with the district to ensure the site remains available as NHCS evaluates the next steps for the school.”
Democratic State House Representative Deb Butler, who has also advocated for Isaac Bear’s new building, wrote in an email, “Raleigh Republicans have disinvested from public education every year I have been there. Hundreds of millions spent annually on a voucher scheme to line the coffers of private for profit schools that have no accountability to the taxpayers for the money they receive,” adding, “This puts a terrible burden on our county who is then forced to subsidize schools to well over 100 million dollars because the state is shirking its constitutional obligations to educate our children. And the result is that a crown jewel like Isaac Bear is left to languish without a proper facility of their own for years. It is nothing short of disgraceful.”
In the end, Villines is not convinced they’ll see the $50 million for the building, and said he hasn’t heard of a Plan B for the school.
“I'm not even trying to sugarcoat it. I just don't see it happening,” he said.
Walker also said Plan A — a new building — has likely gone out the window, “Unless we have another entity come through, perhaps The Endowment they would want to be part of it, possibly” but added, “The budget season I just went through where we're borrowing money to balance the budget, and also taking money out of fund balance. The tax rate is not conducive to building a $50 million building,” she said.
Nonetheless, Walker said she’ll keep working on new prospects for the school, “I haven't forgotten Isaac Bear, and I think we should figure out what we can do to make sure the students have a place for their school career.”
