BRUNSWICK COUNTY — Two weeks ago, a resolution was presented to the Brunswick County commissioners that would approve of a $409 million school bond for the March 2026 ballot, despite the capital projects not yet receiving a lot of public attention.
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The proposed project list includes $83.9 million for an elementary school in the north area, $234 million for a high school, more than $30 million in land purchases for future schools, $4.3 million in sports upgrades, $4.75 million to extend Governors Road near the Town Creek schools, and $5.8 million in district-wide intercom replacements and data rewirings.
The resolution was ultimately tabled, with commissioners expressing concerns about costs of the projects and the pace of the request. They asked the schools team to consider the November 2026 election to allow the bond to get a wider reach among voters. They also said it would give more time to advertise the bond and get people on board, also noting their issue with a lack of a public meeting on the bond projects before they were given to commissioners.
“We’re having to go ahead and make a decision prior to you vetting it publicly at your level,” Commissioner Marty Cooke said at the meeting.
School board chair Steven Barger said he and his vice chair, Steve Gainey, met with the commissioners chair and vice chair, Mike Forte and Cooke, several times, so the price tags on the projects “shouldn’t be a surprise.”
They shared a “liaison committee” has been meeting to discuss the schools’ capital needs; the committee includes Superintendent Dale Cole, county manager Steve Stone and the two boards’ finance officers. Cole explained more in an email exchange with Port City Daily.
“This group gets together as needed to discuss the capital needs of the school district each year and as much as necessary,” he wrote. “The members then take information back to their prospective boards to share.”
Though the meetings didn’t break open meetings law, as there was never a quorum of either body there, the gatherings also aren’t required to be held behind closed doors. By comparison, the New Hanover County school board has been discussing a 2026 bond currently, though its finance committee, which is inclusive of New Hanover County commissioners and staff, and the whole board have met several times to narrow in on a project list and discuss priorities. All these meetings have been held in open session.
PCD asked the superintendent why the meetings were not held in open session, where the public could observe.
“This committee was in place before I got here, so I cannot speak to the original purpose,” Cole said.
Cole also noted state law doesn’t require the board of education to vote on a formal request for the county commissioners to issue a school bond. Both he and Barger told Port City Daily a bond has been discussed on multiple occasions, though Cole admitted they were informal.
“Typically, it would come up when we discussed traffic issues, capacity issues, or when buying and installing modular classrooms at schools that are over capacity but continue to grow,” Cole said. “Bond needs were also discussed when we received our demography report from Carolina Demography this spring.”
The study shows all of the Brunswick County schools would be over 100% capacity by the end of this decade, illustrating the need for more schools, especially in the north region of the county. At the county commissioners meeting, Barger and Cole were clear the problem could only be solved through new construction, as the ability to add modular units to the north end would be maxed out and redistricting wouldn’t solve the problem either.
The commissioners spent more than half of the bond conversation discussing use of a new school as a storm shelter, which would require hardening of the structure or part of the school to make it withstandable to heavy wind and rain. Commissioners have requested this be done to one of the new elementary schools in the northern region.
Cole explained this would add $19 million to the project cost. He said only hardening one building, perhaps the gym or cafeteria, of the school would alleviate the cost burden compared to hardening the entire school, but the county would need to be clear which part of the building is the designated shelter in its advertisements and ensure people weren’t housed in other parts.
The superintendent also raised the issue of the elementary school, with a capacity for 750 students, being able to suffice shelter needs for the north end of the county. He said he was informed there were 800 people housed at West Brunswick High during 2018’s Hurricane Florence and, thus, just hardening the school’s gym and cafeteria may be only able to hold around 500.
Commissioner Pat Sykes asked what it would cost to build a standalone shelter. The BCS partners didn’t know, and Barge pointed out it wasn’t their responsibility.
“We can have that taken out of the bond,” Barger said. “I don’t know that we should be soliciting the architect to get an estimate for y’all to build a shelter.”
Sykes also took issue with the board’s proposal to implement pre-K classrooms into its elementary school designs. The district only offers pre-K for children with special needs after turning over the county’s 264 state-allotted seats to private daycares in 2010. In January, the school board discussed a plan for bringing those classrooms back.
“If we’re going to have taxpayers paying for pre-K, then I want everybody that’s eligible to be able to go to the school,” Sykes said, claiming the board is picking and choosing who goes.
Cole clarified it would not be up to them, rather based on socioeconomic status, to determine which students received a slot among the limited amount of seats the district could provide.
Overall, the commissioners were concerned about the tight timeline.
“My biggest concern is, and I know you can’t do this because you can’t campaign, is the lack of an existing campaign organization to go sell this,” Commissioner Williams said.
Barger told Port City Daily, ultimately, the commissioners weren’t prepared for the bond conversation.
“It really wasn’t the school board’s fault,” Barger said. “They have their own representatives on the liaison committee that could have, should have, communicated with them.”
Nevertheless, BCS has made adjustments since Sept. 15. The BCS liaisons decided to take off pre-K and one elementary school, bringing down the overall bond cost to $363 million. This amended list was presented to the entire Brunswick County school board on Sept. 22, though no action was requested or taken by the board.
“It’s important to note that if we do not act on this referendum until November, and in the off chance it should not pass, we would not be able to revisit it until March of 2028 and that’s a totally untenable position for the school board,” Gainey said at the meeting.
Barger told PCD the school board would be advertising the bond in schools and churches and any other spaces they were allowed in the coming months. This would most likely be done with the help of a nonprofit that could advocate for the projects.
“At the end of the day, our schools are overcrowded,” he said. “We have to build new schools. Kids are in mobile classrooms and trailers that aren’t safe. You know, a tornado comes through, [it] tears those trailers apart, right? We have issues with trying to get all the kids and capture the lunches and fit that in during the school day, while also maintaining a high level of instruction. The whole thing with traffic, a lot of traffic issues are too many kids in one location. I said the cars are backed up onto the highway — so [this bond] affects everybody.”
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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