SCPrepTalk

whats with the talk of combining High schools.....? What other HS are in Abbeville co. ?

It looks like:
Abbeville - 2A
Dixie - 1A

Touchy, controversial subject.... I'll give a short synopsis without getting too long winded.

Yes, there are two schools in our district, Dixie and Abbeville. Both schools were built in the 50s/60s and are in very poor condition. A lot of issues with our facilities have came to a boiling point the past year or two and they are deciding to take action and get a referendum on the ballot to build. The issue is, what are we building? Some folks rather there remain two high schools, while some believe what's best is to build just one high school for the county. And then, you have the usual gallery of folks who don't want us to build anything because taxes will increase. The combined student population of Abbeville and Dixie is <1000. That alone would be justification for building just one school in most places. But pride and identity is getting in the way. I personally am in favor of building something. I don't care whether we build one school, two, whatever, we just need something better for our teachers and students. Anyone who has gone to or visited our high schools know we are in dire need of something. We are starving....

Man I hate to hear that yall are having these issues and yes that is a touchy subject. What is the general overall feelings from the people in Abbeville do they see it as a good thing or do they don't even want to talk about it.

From a outsider looking in it would make sense money wise for the district to build 1 state of the art school and get all the kids in 1 school.

We have just the opposite here. Too many schools and more empty seats than full ones. Possum Hole is a 1500 seat school with about 50% empty seats, and We Don't Need it High School that was built to relieve crowding at Possum Hole with a capacity of 600 with only about 400 students. All of that after more than 500 students were taken away from Beaufort High because of redrawn attendance lines. Beaufort now has about 1350 when we were at 1800 about 5 years ago. The sports programs in northern Beaufort county were all destroyed by a school board who put zero importance upon them.

AHS14 wrote:Touchy, controversial subject.... I'll give a short synopsis without getting too long winded.

Yes, there are two schools in our district, Dixie and Abbeville. Both schools were built in the 50s/60s and are in very poor condition. A lot of issues with our facilities have came to a boiling point the past year or two and they are deciding to take action and get a referendum on the ballot to build. The issue is, what are we building? Some folks rather there remain two high schools, while some believe what's best is to build just one high school for the county. And then, you have the usual gallery of folks who don't want us to build anything because taxes will increase. The combined student population of Abbeville and Dixie is <1000. That alone would be justification for building just one school in most places. But pride and identity is getting in the way. I personally am in favor of building something. I don't care whether we build one school, two, whatever, we just need something better for our teachers and students. Anyone who has gone to or visited our high schools know we are in dire need of something. We are starving....

Thanks...very informative...when Jonesville and Lockhart were combined with Union Co. the school pride issue was much contention...I think they have pretty much forgotten about it now....good luck...hope u get a new school...

A lot of different opinions from everyone here in Abbeville about what to do. For sure it needs to be a simple "Yes" or "No" that gets put on the referendum instead of several options, there will be struggle to get plurality for construction if there are several things to choose from.

My question from an athletics standpoint for those who have gone through this before - how would coaching staffs consolidate? Who gets to be the head coach at a unified school?

It makes the most financial sense to combine the two of both schools are in need of being rebuilt. In fact I doubt that absorbing Dixie would add that much to a new Abbeville High. But understand the old line allegiances. Union County went through that when combining everything into Union High a few years back. It was the right thing to do, but still some feelings rubbed the wrong way in the Jonesville, Lockhart, communities. But times change. And smartest route is the one that makes the most since financially.