The county’s newest elementary school will bear the name of the community it is located in rather than the road it sits on when it takes in students in the 2010-2011 school year,.

The Richmond County School Board voted unanimously Tuesday night to change the name of Chalk Road School to East Rockingham Elementary School at the request of residents.

“Several of you have approached me about revisiting the name on the school on Chalk Road,” Richmond County Schools Superintendent Dr. George Norris said during his report. “The board had previously approved the name Chalk Road School, and there had been a lot of discussion about that night.”

Norris said he’d visited with the East Rockingham Men’s Club to get their input on naming the school.

“Many of them liked the name East Rockingham Elementary School, and many of them also liked the name Rohanen,” Norris said. “They felt like either of those names would reflect better on that community than Chalk Road.”

He said the reason for bringing the matter before the board Tuesday was because the time to order the signs for the school is quickly approaching.

A motion was entered by board member Pamela Easterling, and seconded by board member Cathy Wilson.

“At our previous meeting, I voted in favor of naming the school Chalk Road School,” board member Wiley Mabe said during the discussion period. “But after talking with the community, I think it’s only fair that we reconsider our vote at this time.”

The motion passed unanimously, and board members Tom McInnis and Mabe both commented on the order and efficiency at the site where the school is being built during their reports.

Board members Ed Ormsby, Bruce Stanback and Easterling also reacted favorably to a report from RCS Director of Exceptional Children Jeanette Davis that exceptional children are now being included in the regular classroom.

She termed the change moving to “an inclusion model.”

“This program has been instituted in all four of our middle schools,” Davis said. “Our target students are at-risk students, not just students with disabilities, but these are our Level I and Level II students, and the majority of them benefit from this program.”

Easterling asked if this means EC students don’t go to special classes anymore.

Davis explained exceptional students, under the inclusion model, receive instruction in a regular classroom setting most of the day, as opposed to being in special education classes most of the day.

Davis said an EC teacher is in the classroom with the students to supplement instruction from the teacher “to address their needs immediately, instead of at the end of the school day.”

“The pull-out model, we still have that for students who need it, but the benefit of the inclusion model is that when our students go into the special setting, they’re usually just focusing on particular strengths or weaknesses,” Davis said. “Whereas within the regular setting, they’re focusing on the complete North Carolina Course of Study ... What is actually happening is many of them are getting double because they have the regular teacher and special needs instruction.”

She explained that EC students are held to the same standards as traditional students, so it only makes sense to have them receive the same instruction.

“Also, we have seen drastic improvement in the behavior issues with our EC students so far,” Davis said. “I attribute this to an increase in self-esteem.”

In other business:

n RCS Director of Federal Programs Cindy Holland updated the board on special entitlement spending from federal funds based on Title I statistics and the stimulus package.

She informed the board Leak Street High School and the Richmond County Transitional School received more than $19,000 in Title I funds and more than $11,000 in Title I funds, respectively.

She said there is currently a needs assessment underway to determine how to spend these allotments of about $226 per student, but some of the materials being considered include classroom technology like Smart Boards and the hand-held devices that go along with them.

Computers and library books are also under consideration.

“Our goal is to engage the students and make them want to stay in school,” Holland said.

She also said about $1.2 million in stimulus funding for the next two years will be spent to maintain positions including four teaching assistants, three academic coaches and four social worker positions.

It will also be used to add two new positions, a Supplemental Education Services Coordinator and a Pre-School Coordinator, as well as to fund district-wide initiatives like “Ramp Up to Literacy” and “Ramp Up to Algebra.”

n The board was introduced to the teaching mentors who will be responsible for working with beginning teachers at both the primary and secondary levels.

Last year’s RCS Teacher of the Year Martha Anderson will work with all new teachers from the K-8 level, while high school teachers will receive help from several part-time employees who retired from the school system as teachers.