A northeast high School has shut down for the first time in two decades, after the board voted unanimously to close the district.
Northwest High School was founded in 1946 by John C. Brown and his wife, Dorothy.
The board unanimously voted Thursday to close its doors to the public after finding that it had a $300 million shortfall in its state budget, and it was forced to seek additional money from the state.
The district, which includes North Pointe, was closed after more than a decade because of declining enrollment.
“We had some very serious problems that were very clear,” said board member and principal of North Pointes High, David C. DeSantis.
“We did not have the ability to continue to provide the level of quality education that we had.”
The closure is the second such closure at a North Point School in the past three years.
In 2016, the board passed a resolution to close North Point Heights Middle School, and the school shut down in April.
A statement from the North Point High School’s board read, in part, “We have been informed that our school has been closed.
As the only remaining school in North Point, it is important for us to be clear that we are not closing our doors.
We will be open and available to students, staff, and community members.”
North Point High is one of only five elementary schools in the state with fewer than 1,000 students.
It serves students from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region.
The rest of the district serves students in the city of Wilmington, which is in the process of developing a plan to expand and increase enrollment.
DeSantis said the closure is a huge blow to North Point’s students.
“The number of kids that go to North Station, we were not seeing,” he said.
“That’s the hardest part of it, that’s the students who we can’t serve, who don’t know that they have access to education.”
The board is considering a request for proposals to find an alternative location to teach.
