The Pamlico County (North Carolina) district plans to break ground this fall in Bayboro on a $67 million, 130,447-square-foot middle and high school campus.
The New Bern Sun Journal reports that two-story facility will be constructed behind the existing Pamlico County High School, where the baseball field now sits. A new baseball field will be installed behind Fred Anderson Elementary School.
The first students are expected to move into the new facility in August 2026. The architect is sfL+a Architects.
Once the new campus is complete, the existing high school will be demolished, and a large parking lot will replace it.
A separate auditorium building, constructed in 1957, and a cafeteria building, constructed in 2007, will remain on the campus, according to Superintendent Jeremy Johnson. The cafeteria facility will become a culinary lab and will house the ROTC program.
Johnson says a combined middle-high campus will help make the transition to upper grades easier for students. And because some teachers have both middle and high school classes, working on one campus will be more convenient.
The new middle school space will enable the district to leave behind the existing middle school, which sits in a flood zone. It has been flooded twice, during Hurricane Irene in 2011, and during Hurricane Florence in 2018, according to Johnson.