• PLEASE NOTE:  The redistricting of Dixon High School students will be for the 2024-2025 school year

Dixon High School Redistricting

      Why Redistricting?

      • OCS is the 11th largest district in the state of North Carolina with over 27,000 students currently enrolled. The district has 40 educational facilities, including 21 elementary schools, 8 middle schools, 7 high schools, an early college high school, an early childhood development center, an alternative learning program, and the Eastern North Carolina Regional Skills Center. Additionally, the Onslow K-12 Virtual School (OVS) provides families with an alternative to in-person learning. On average, our district has increased by over 300  students per year.

        The relocation of MARSOC West to our community, combined with increased civilian development, has brought increased population growth to our county, especially and most recently, to the Sneads Ferry and Holly Ridge areas.  While this growth is very beneficial to our community, it presents unique challenges to the school system in the form of capacity issues at our schools.  Dixon High School is a good example of this.

        Dixon High School was originally built in 1967, and has been expanded numerous times since then, most recently in 2008.  With the addition of the annex from the old Dixon Middle School, the capacity of the high school was increased to 957 students.  Dixon High School's current population is well above that number.  The most responsible course of action to ease capacity issues at Dixon High School would be to use available seats in surrounding districts when it is deemed feasible to do so.  To help alleviate the capacity issues at Dixon High School, staff is proposing a potential redistricting between Dixon High School and Southwest High School.  This would mean some students who currently attend Dixon High School would be redistricted to Southwest High School, which is below its capacity of 1016.

         

      How is Redistricting Done?

      • The district considers a number of different facets when evaluating potential redistricting, including factors such as the capacity of the schools, trends in student populations, availability of similar instructional opportunities, efficient transportation, proximity of the student’s home to the school, and, most importantly, considerations for the community.  These community considerations include maintaining cohesive neighborhoods when possible, past redistricting efforts and their effects on the local community, and the effect on feeder schools.

        The district works with OREd (Operations Research and Education Library) out of NC State to help create attendance zone map options for consideration.  Our transportation department then uses those maps to calculate travel times of potential bus routes and may suggest edits to the original maps based on that information.       

      Public Comment

      • Two public meetings, in a town hall format, will be held to collect feedback from the public and to potentially make changes to the proposed options based on that feedback.  Both meetings will be held in the Dixon High School auditorium on the following dates:

        • Thursday, May 11, 2023 @ 6:00pm
        • Wednesday, May 17, 2023 @ 6:00pm

        Feedback from the public is an extremely important part of the redistricing process and public input is strongly encouraged.  For those who are not able to attend the public forums, feedback can also be shared by emailing dhsredistricting@onslow.k12.nc.us  

      Stay informed...