Realignment Is On The Way

We all are know what realignment is right?  Our four Nash County schools are in year three of the latest version of conference realignment in the Big East.  Four Nash County schools and two from Wilson County and it is hard to have a better conference any where as about 22 miles is the longest trip for anybody when they have an away game.  There is that natural Wilson and Rocky Mount rivalry intertwined with five of the six schools.

The spring you will begin hearing of talks beginning as conversations about the next North Carolina High School four year realignment as North Carolina's population explosion  continues.  Will the Big East grow or lose someone as we did with SouthWest Edgecombe the last realignment? We gained Hunt who has shown to be very well rounded in all sports. Is there any way to keep away games at 22 miles?

Is Beddingfield large enough to join our league or will someone like Bunn ruin that 22 mile boundary that we have now.  What is going to happen to Hertford County in their 3A/2A league.  If they wind up leaving that arrangement their only choice is either the Big East or Coastal and that leaves them out in the boondocks in either league and not anybody in those leagues want that.  Rumors are that the Coastal just might wind up a 4-A league next go round anyway.

There is another realignment coming and it is happening next fall.  The New Rocky Mount High School even though it is only a mile from the old one is bringing a realignment to the boundaries to the Nash School System's boundary line.  Where will the kids in Sharpsburg go?  What about the Edgecombe  County side of Rocky Mount?  I think you can count  on all four schools staying the same size as each other but how to you go about keeping it equal as it is now.

If we look back at it use to be, before Nash Central came along Northern Nash had almost 1,800 students and Rocky Mount about 1,450.  Northern lost more than 500 students and Rocky Mount a couple of hundred.  If you ask any Northern fan they will tell you their athletics especially football has suffered from that student loss.  The record would show that to be true.  But, since Nash Central came along Rocky Mount has had their best six year run in football in decades. 

Does the future hold a fifth high school in the county?  Until the economy brightens and another major industry moves to town that people would want to come here for the jobs I doubt it.   We  are having a hard enough time keeping 1,200 in the ones we have now.  If no new school is on the horizon then the next big project would be either remodel Northern or built a new one.  The way the economy is now that won't happen in the next ten years.  If a new Northern Nash was to be built in a new location seems to me closer to the Northgreen area would help.  We already have the Carriage Road area covered.

The East of I-95 corridor only has one area that is booming and that is Greenville and that is because of  the Medical School at ECU is providing for Eastern North Carolina what Duke and UNC give the Piedmont.  We don't know the future but I think we are a long ways off before a fifth public high school is even thought about in this area.

How do you keep them all the same size without people taking a half hour to get to school when there is another just around the corner?  Keeping all the schools the same size is the right thing to do.  Doing it fairly may be the problem.