Community Members Petition For Guilford School Construction Proposal

A group of community members and educators gathered in front of the Guilford County Courthouse Tuesday to discuss capital improvement needs in the school district.  

The Guilford County Board of Education is asking county commissioners to put a $1.6 billion school construction bond on the Nov. 3 ballot.

This comes after a consulting group released a report that says nearly half the schools in the district are in poor or unsatisfactory condition.

GCS officials say the upgrades would touch every school and come in phases.

Despite uncertainties with budgets from the pandemic, local groups want the County Board of commissioners to fully support the amount requested by school leaders.

Melissa Hazzard is a parent of a GCS student and is with the group Communities United for Public Schools. 

So far, they've collected more than 1,500 signatures in their petition to commissioners.

“We want all of the schools funded and we want to make sure that children have access to safe, healthy, inspiring schools that aren't leaking and have mold issues,” says Hazzard. “There's just a lot of work to be done and we really want to press the commissioners to just allow the public to vote on this.”

Guilford County Commissioners will discuss the school construction bond proposal at their meeting on Thursday.  

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