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GREENSBORO — The Guilford County school board moved forward on several key issues this week, including naming the county’s second special education school.

The school, under way in Jamestown, will be known as the Meredith Leigh Haynes–Bennie Lee Inman Education Center.

The school is named for Meredith Haynes, a former special needs student, and Bennie Lee Inman, a former special education teacher and special needs advocate who helped establish the county’s first special education school in Greensboro, the Gateway Education Center.

Several of her friends said Inman, who began advocating for special needs children in the 1950s but is now in poor health, helped bring special needs to the forefront in Guilford County.

Haynes died in 1993 at the age of 20. As her health got worse, it became impossible for her to make the trip from Jamestown to Greensboro to attend Gateway. Her family sold the school system the property the new school is being built on. The property once held the family home.

In other business Tuesday, the board:

l Approved changes to the Advanced Placement program, making the exams optional for the first time and shifting a quarter of the cost of the exams to parents.

Students can take various Advanced Placement courses which are designed to be as rigorous as entrance-level college courses.

Some colleges trade college course credit for high scores on AP exams.

Until this year, the school system required students enrolled in the courses to take the exam but paid the $86 for each exam. Last year, the school system spent $607,630 on AP exams.

The national exam does not factor into the student’s final course grade, and some parents and teachers said that students didn’t take the exam seriously, wasting taxpayer money.

This coming year, parents of AP students choosing to take the exam will pay $21.50 for each exam. The school system will pay $21.50, and the Businesses for Excellence in Education, a consortium of local businesses who sponsor various school initiatives, agreed to pay the final $43 for each exam.

Students who cannot afford the test will receive financial assistance.

l Released 2009 graduation numbers. The system improved marginally, increasing from 79.7 in 2008 to 79.8 in 2009. Six schools, all of them small, special programs, have graduation rates above 95 percent.

Andrews High in High Point reported the worst graduation rate at 66.8 percent, 6 percentage points lower than the next-lowest rate, reported at Smith High.

l Discussed how maintenance needs and debt could be taken care of if a negotiation between county leadership prevails.

School board Chairman Alan Duncan told the school board he and Vice Chairman Amos Quick have discussed with county commissioners Chairman Melvin “Skip” Alston and Vice Chairman Steve Arnold about moving forward with an application for $17.5 million in federal stimulus bonds. The school board approved applying for the money last month and planned to use it for maintenance needs at 30 schools.

The federal government pays the interest on the bond, but local taxpayers would repay the principal.

Unlike some other forms of long-term debt, this one does not require prior approval from voters. However, the Board of Commissioners has to concur, something that has not been a given because of a rocky relationship between the two boards in recent months.

Duncan told the school board Alston and Arnold proposed using the new money to replace debt that already exists for two schools projects not under way yet.

The interest savings by doing this are estimated at about $5.5 million.

Duncan said if the school board supports that move, Alston and Arnold will support the school board’s application for another $17 million federal bond allocation in January. That second bond would be used for the maintenance needs the school board originally proposed.

On Wednesday, Alston said he believes the rest of his board will support the proposal.

Contact J. Brian Ewing at 373-7351 or brian.ewing@news-record.com