CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - Stanley Middle School has needed serious repair for years. Its roof is in particularly rough shape.
It would be really good if we could have some help here," says Debbie McLane.
McLane's teenagers go to Stanley, and the situation pains them...literally.
"For two years now, they have not been able to have lockers," McLane says. "It's very taxing on their backs."
Now it looks like this school and a long list of others in Gaston County may finally get much-needed makeovers, but the money that would pay for the maintenance would have to come from a building fund for brand new schools.
In 2007, voters approved a $175 million bond referendum with the belief that it would all go towards new construction. A high school campus in Cramerton, now under construction, is the first of five projects promised, but Gaston County Commission Chair Donnie Loftis says circumstances have changed, and after this, there should be no more new schools.
"In '07, everything was booming," Loftis says. "Real estate was booming. People were booming. Jobs were booming, and you have to plan ahead."
Officials thought they would need to add buildings to accommodate a growing population, but then the economy crashed, and that changed.
"Now it's gone downhill...we lost close to a thousand students last year," Loftis says.
So Loftis and others want to ask the public to approve a change in plans.
McLane, for one, is on board.
"You can take what you have and you can fix it up and you can use it," she says.
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