Amid discussions from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education about which elementary schools to close in light of declining student enrollment and funding challenges, Carrboro Elementary School will not be in consideration.
Instead, the school district is making headway on its plans to replace the existing school building northwest of downtown Carrboro — which features aging infrastructure — with an updated one on adjacent land. The replacement project is funded by a 2024 Orange County bond referendum, which split $300 million between CHCCS and Orange County Schools for major school infrastructure projects.
Last week, the board approved an initial site plan for Carrboro Elementary’s new school building, which is slated to complete construction early 2028 and open that fall. Leading the Feb. 19 presentation, Deputy Superintendent of Operations Al Ciarochi said the selected design aims to minimize disturbance to the existing school’s daily activities, as it will remain in operation during the construction period.
An initial rendering of Carrboro Elementary School’s updated building and campus, approved by the CHCCS Board of Education on Feb. 19. (Image via CHCCS.)
Carrboro Elementary’s current campus and school building, located along Shelton Street and near downtown. (Image via CHCCS.)
The layout puts the new building to the north and on the site’s highest piece of land, distancing major construction from the current school. Ciarochi said the design also works to minimize tree removal and maximize existing open space. A multi-use field would replace the current baseball field on campus, and a community garden would also be added for both school and community use. He said the garden would benefit both the nearby residential community, as well as allow for additional tree plantings to compensate for those cleared on the property.
A connector road to the east would also be added to help with car queues during drop-off and pick-up hours.
“What it does is it allows the traffic to be taken off the road so that people can drive on it,” Ciarochi said. “Emergency vehicles can get past. With this being residential, this is a huge improvement for the school and for the community, but at the same time it just mitigates the amount of buffer clearing that is necessary.”
Ciarochi called the site plan layout an “important milestone” for the replacement project, following various listening sessions with the greater Carrboro community, parents, and residents. The subsequent design phase is set to be completed in early 2027, following more community engagement activities.
“Thank you and your team for really going out to the Carrboro Community,” Board Member Meredith Ballew said. “Talking to a number of different groups, getting feedback, and then coming up with a plan that I think satisfies a lot of the concerns that were expressed, particularly regarding the tree line. We would like to not lose any trees, but the reality is when you’re building a new school on a small enclosed site where there already is another school, it’s a little challenging.”
The 2026-27 Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools Board of Education. (Photo via CHCCS.)
While the new building would add 30,000 square-feet, Ciarochi said enrollment at the school would likely remain about the same, with room for a slight increase. With waning enrollment trends, he explained how the district is not looking to add more seats, but offer more flexibility in the classroom in a way that merely renovating the current 1959 building would not accomplish. For example, larger spaces would allow the school to offer both more direct services to students with specific needs and a variety of lesson types.
“Today’s instruction is not about talking at [students], it’s about exponential learning,” Ciarochi said. “It’s about cooperative learning, it’s about children being able to gather in a group at the elementary level over here, over there, over here, do activities, [and] come back together collectively as a group.
“So classroom size is very important,” he continued. “The types of furniture that are used are different. The desks that I had back in — I won’t say when — we don’t use those. We use tables. We offer flexibility so the spaces are more open and not fixed.”
To view the full CHCCS Board of Education meeting, click here.
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