During a special called board of education meeting Monday evening, the Stanly County School Board passed a motion to table the tiered school plan for Central and East Albemarle elementary schools until next year.

Central principal Melissa Smith and East Albemarle principal Jonathan Brooks presented the findings of the information session they had with parents in late February to the board.

The tiered system would have designated East Albemarle as a K-1 school and Central a grades 2-5 school.

Many parents saw obstacles with the system, including siblings having to attend different schools, different start times with the two schools, staff having to move to another school, funding for the system and a lack of data to support the tiered system.

The principals stated that, even with the proposed tiered system being discussed, both schools have been doing well this school year.

Board member Anthony Graves was worried about lack of data.

“So at the end of the day, if there’s no data to support doing it, then just taking a guess is not good enough if you’re going to disrupt families,” Graves said.

Graves made a motion to table any action regarding the tiered school plan for the upcoming school year. This would allow Stanly County Schools to further research the tiered issue.

The motion passed.