Where should a new E.E. Smith High School be located?

Another site for where a new E.E. Smith High School could be located is under evaluation after Tuesday night’s meeting of the Cumberland County Board of Education.

Several pieces of land have been evaluated, and officials have worked with Fort Liberty representatives to identify yet another parcel of land, Kevin Coleman, associate superintendent for the district's auxiliary services, said during the meeting.

The latest site under consideration is on Bragg Boulevard near Stryker Golf Course, Coleman said.

“At this point, we’re doing due diligence, and we want to evaluate the site to determine if it fits our needs,” he said.

However, two board members said they don’t think moving the school away from the Murchison Road area where it’s currently located is appropriate and would prefer community input before making a decision.

Board members Judy Musgrave and Carrie Sutton voted against evaluating the site near Fort Liberty, while members Donna Vann, Jacquelyn Brown, Alicia Chisolm, Deanna Jones, Nathan Warfel, Greg West and Susan Williams approved evaluating if the site is feasible to consider in the future.

Murchison Road

Coleman said district officials are also in contact with county representatives who are in support of the county purchasing another site “somewhere toward the end of Murchison Road” for evaluation.

Coleman did not have information readily available about the specific location of the Murchison Road site Tuesday night.

“After we’re able to evaluate both sites, we’d be able to bring the information back to the board to make the determination of what site would fit best for us,” he said.

Sutton said she thought it was premature to vote Tuesday night without knowing more about the Murchison Road site and that she is opposed to looking at a Fort Liberty site.

In a phone interview Wednesday morning, Sutton said her vote does not mean she opposes a new school.

“I’ve fought for a new school since I’ve been on the board, but I’ve fought for a new school to be around or close to the community it sits in right now,” Sutton said.

The current building, which houses the historically Black school near Fayetteville's Murchison Road corridor, was built in 1953.

The school, originally founded in 1927, is named after Ezekiel Ezra Smith, a Fayetteville educator and statesman from the late 1800s.

It also is the high school attended by students who live on Fort Liberty.

Sutton said that with the move to revitalize the Murchison Road corridor, she thinks officials should look harder at finding a site that works near Murchison Road.

“I don’t feel good having a comprehensive high school, especially one that has a historic African American name on it, on a military installation that doesn’t have the same legacy and history,” Sutton said.

Sutton said if the majority of E.E. Smith alumni were OK with the school being on federal property and subject to a contract agreement, she wouldn’t “do anything to stop it,” but she’d prefer a community meeting be held in advance to allow alumni, parents and community stakeholders to be part of the discussion.

“Right now, I think it’s unclear and people are wondering and asking questions,” she said. “I think we need more conversation and communication with the public.”

'E.E. Smith is in your heart': Alumni, students say legacy means more than school's location

Preferring community input

In a separate phone interview Wednesday afternoon, Musgrave shared reasons similar to Sutton's for why she also does not want a new E.E. Smith High School to be near Fort Liberty.

“My daughter graduated from E.E. Smith, so there’s a special legacy there for us,” Musgrave said. “I taught at E.E. Smith, and keep thinking about that being the only high school around there right now, and that was a predominately Black high school that was and still serves the community.”

Among her concerns are how some parents and students with limited transportation would get to after-school events and activities if the school was located further away from the current area.

Musgrave said she also questions why Tuesday night’s vote was only to consider evaluating the site near Fort Liberty and did not include information about evaluating the area near Murchison Road.

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“I don’t think we’ve had enough input from the community as well,” she said. “So, I wanted to see more from those people that it does affect … I live in the community here, and I didn’t know anything about it (sites to evaluate).”

During Tuesday night’s meeting, Coleman said that simply evaluating a site does not mean the new school will be in that location.

The evaluation, he said, is to ensure a site is large enough based on the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s square footage guidance, and for engineers to determine if the land is suitable for a building.

“I’m just trying to get as many options for the board as we can get because this is obviously a huge decision for the board,” he said.

Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Land near Fort Liberty looked at as option for E.E. Smith High School