WS Chronicle

The Forsyth County Board of Commissioners has unanimously approved a resolution that would allow Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools to move forward with the next phase of construction for the new Ashley Elementary.

Here’s what we know: On Thursday, Dec. 5, WS/FCS requested $700,000 to fund design documents for the new Ashley Elementary School. These documents will determine design elements and allow the district to bring the project out to bid in the future. 

According to Darryl Walker, WS/FCS executive director of construction and planning, including construction, furniture, media, technology, security, and other needs, the project is estimated at $46 million. Construction will take about 16-18 months, which means the school would open during the 2026-2027 school year. 

Talks about a new Ashley, which is located in the heart of East Winston, have been ongoing for over a decade. Although Ashley has served as an elementary school since the mid-’90s, the building was originally built in the 1960s and operated as a middle school until it closed in the 1980s. In 2016, voters approved paying for the design of a new Ashley Elementary, but funding to build the new school was left off the 2016 Education Bond.

In 2018 the push for a new Ashley heated up when teachers and staff at the school complained of mold being present throughout the building. That same year, Action4Ashley (now Action4Equity), and a local branch of the NAACP, filed a discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights against WS/FCS. The complaint alleges that WS/FCS violated federal anti-discrimination laws by failing to ensure that students at Ashley, who are almost all Black and brown students, have the same access to safe and appropriate school buildings as white students in the district.

In 2019, construction of a new Ashley took a step closer to becoming a reality when the Winston-Salem City Council approved the sale of vacant land located near Cleveland Avenue Homes. WS /FCS made a request to purchase 18 lots located near East 21st Street and New Hope Lane near Highway 52. To finalize the deal, the city council had to rescind a previous deal for the sale of 24 lots to the Housing Authority of Winston-Salem (HAWS).

In September the WSFCS Board of Education voted 7-1 to finally move forward with construction documents and the ball got rolling. The vote by the board of commissioners last week is the first in several votes that will need to take place over the next few years to complete the project. 

Several members of Action4Equity attended the meeting last week to see the resolution passed. Rev. Paul Ford spoke on behalf of the organization during the public comment portion of the meeting and urged the board of commissioners to continue their support until the project is finished. 

“This is a long time coming, long overdue. The students and families of the Ashley Academy want to urge this commission to vote in favor of this amendment and then, of course, continue to maintain that support as this project continues,” Ford said. “The teachers, the students, the families have been deserving this for a very long time.”