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M <br />,.�, I <br />PROPOSED PROCESS FOR JOINTLY <br />PLANNING A THIRD HIGH SCHOOL IN ORANGE COUNTY <br />During discussions held in January, 1992, the Orange County <br />Commissioners, the Orange County Board of Education, and the Chapel Hill - <br />Carrboro Board of Education agreed to include a new high school in the bond <br />issue which will be placed before the County's voters in a referendum on <br />November 3, 1992. There is agreement that the new high school will be <br />constructed and administered by the Chapel Hill - Carrboro City Schools. The <br />facility should be designed, however, with an eye toward the facility <br />offering programs which are open to OCS students immediately and the school, <br />possibly, being part of a merged Orange County school district some time <br />later in the future. Consequently, suggestions and reactions to proposals <br />should be actively solicited from the Orange County Schools during the <br />planning process. The goal is to design a high school which, in conjunction <br />with the two districts' present high school facilities, will have the <br />potential to meet the educational needs of the County's high school students <br />during the first half of the twenty -first century. <br />Five major issues have been identified which must be addressed in <br />conjunction with the planning of a new high school: <br />1. Where will it be located? <br />2. Will the school provide a comprehensive program which generally <br />parallels that of Chapel Hill High school, will it replicate all <br />of the programs which are already offered at CHHS, or will it <br />function as an alternative or magnet school? <br />3. How will the design of the school reflect the response to the above <br />question? <br />4. Who will attend the new school? What shared programs will be made <br />available to Orange County Schools' students? Will the Chapel <br />Hill- Carrboro City Schools end its moratorium on out -of- district <br />high school transfers and will the OCS Board respond positively to <br />requests from potential transfers to be released to attend CHCCS? <br />5. When will the new high school be opened? <br />Background information, as well as a process for addressing each of these <br />issues, are provided in the remainder of this report. <br />LOCATION <br />There is some lack of clarity over the final decision which was made by <br />the three boards in January concerning the location of the new high school. <br />The CHCCS Board left with the understanding that the school would be located <br />within the district's boundaries but with a sensitivity to accessibility to <br />OCS students. Some Commissioners, however, did not feel that a firm, <br />irrevocable decision was made on the location of the high school. In later <br />