Redistricting for some students and building a new school on the south side of the river for others were two ideas floated at Monday night’s meeting of the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners.

Commissioner Hood Richardson brought the issue up, posing the idea that students from more crowded schools should be bused to less crowded schools in an aim to be more efficient. Richardson said a study done several years ago found that Beaufort County Schools had approximately 9,000 seats available, but only 7,000 students to fill them.

“We have some school buildings that are full. We have several buildings that are as much as half full, one of those in Northside,” Richardson said. “Since that ‘blue book’ study, we have less students than we had then. … We should find a way to move students into these empty seats in schools.”

Richardson said he was afraid school administrators will eventually ask for construction of new schools in response those that are overcrowded, but with the empty seats in other schools the county could avoid another school bond.

“All we have to do is draw a few lines and reassess some students, and we don’t have to raise any money, and we don’t have to raise taxes,” Richardson said.

Commissioner Ron Buzzeo said it wasn’t so simple: classroom-size mandates being handed down from the North Carolina General Assembly will likely impact schools that don’t have extra classrooms.

“They didn’t ask anyone,” Buzzeo said of the mandate. “We could be talking a lot of money.”

He also pointed out that of 2,100 available, nearly 1,000 of the seats are in special classes such as calculus or reading recovery, which can’t be expected to have full classes. Buzzeo said the majority of empty seats in Beaufort County Schools are in S.W. Snowden Elementary School, Southside High School, Northside High School and Northeast Elementary, all of which are located in more rural areas of the county. The idea of busing children from the crowded to uncrowded schools is not appealing, he said.

“We’re talking about moving children, young children, from Chocowinity to Aurora … from Slatestone to Southside,” Buzzeo said.

Commissioner Gary Brinn said he’d rather see a new school built, one for all kindergartners through eighth-graders on the south side of the Pamlico — much like Southside High School combined Aurora and Chocowinity high schools.

Buzzeo said he’d rather the board of commissioners not make any decisions, but rely on the school board’s recommendations, because they know best what’s needed.

“I can’t see the reverse, where we’re telling them what to do,” Buzzeo said.