Stanley's Community Public Charter School plans new building on new campus

Big changes are in the works for Stanley's Community Public Charter School.

If all goes according to plan, the school will move into a new, $20 million, 70,000 square foot, 47-classroom facility centered on 36 acres just north of Stanley in time for the opening of the 2023-24 school year.

The school, according to its board of trustees chairman Eddie McGinnis, has simply outgrown its 10-acre location adjacent to the Community Pentecostal Center where he serves as senior pastor.

"When we opened in the fall of 2019, we had 240 students," McGinnis, who retired as principal of East Gaston High School, said. "By 2020, that number had grown to 350 students. And this year, we are up to 480.

"We have doubled our student body since we opened," he continued, "and our projections put us at 600 students next year. This site simply cannot accommodate the growth we have had or the growth we foresee."

When the school opened three years ago, it was a kindergarten through fifth grade facility with the plan of adding a grade each year until it became a K-8 school.

Now, McGinnis said the school is considering adding a high school, again one grade at a time.

"We surveyed our parents last year," he said, "and 90 percent of them wanted us to grow into a high school. We'll take another survey early next year and see if that kind of support is still there."

Philip McGinnis, who serves as the school's marketing coordinator, noted that a charter school cannot rely on property tax revenues to fund construction but must instead "be good stewards" in use of the state allotment per student which charter schools receive.

Under North Carolina law, charter schools receive "an amount equal to the average per pupil allocation for average daily membership from the local school administrative unit in which the charter school is located."

"That leaves us with the challenge," Phillip McGinnis said, "of managing our funding to provide for new facilities and to provide transportation. We have to make it all fit and we can only do that by using our money wisely."

The new school, Phillip McGinnis said, will be a two-story, brick and mortar structure with a facade designed to reflect the look of downtown Stanley, with alternating colors and textures.

"We think it will be a very attractive school," he added. "Something that this community can definitely take pride in."

The goal when Community Public Charter School was established four years ago, Eddie McGinnis said, was to provide, "a school of choice, rooted in traditional American values, and with a leadership team that was immediately answerable to parents and to the community."

The school draws its students primarily from the Stanley area, but also has children from Mount Holly, Belmont, Gastonia, and Dallas. Two school buses pick up students each morning from seven "cluster" stops around the county.

Contrary to some public assumptions, Eddie McGinnis said, charter schools cannot pick and choose their students.

Instead, students apply and gain acceptance or not based on a lottery system. The deadline to be a part of the lottery for the 2022-23 school year is Jan. 31. Applications may be made at www.cpcsnc.org.

Bill Poteat, who still gets the occasional itch to return to classroom teaching despite his advanced years, may be reached at 704-869-1855 or bpoteat@gastongazette.com.

This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Stanley's Community Public Charter School plans new building