The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education recently met to continue its conversation on the future elementary school closures.
During a Feb. 19 work session, the board focused on narrowing down its list of criteria for what data or features district staff will use when examining elementary schools for closure, with the target of choosing at least one school to shut down for the 2027-28 school year.
The conversation follows a Feb. 5 meeting, where the majority of the school board expressed interest in closing two elementary schools at once amid waning enrollment trends and funding challenges. While the district previously selected Seawell Elementary School, Ephesus Elementary School, and Glenwood Elementary School as its best options, the board is now also considering Estes Hills Elementary School and Frank Porter Graham Bilingüe Elementary School.
The 2026-27 CHCCS Board of Education. (Photo via CHCCS.)
Though the board aims to review and finalize a shortened list at its upcoming March 5 meeting — at which point it can move forward on tasking staff with school closure plans — the members gave input on a list of 64 initial considerations. A majority of the board members said they would like the list to retain or combine aspects of staff’s recommended considerations, including a school’s long-term maintenance costs, the feasibility of building on site while students remain enrolled, and a building’s adjacency to middle or high schools.
The board also shared interest in keeping considerations related to the cost of replacing a school, campus openness and safety, site adequacy, alignment with ongoing town planning efforts, and campus geographic conditions. Noting how some of the criteria may be better suited for later conversations about redistricting, Board Member Meredith Ballew also supported criteria related to transportation costs and the impact of closures on specific groups.
The work session also included two hours of public comment, where parents and elementary school staff reasoned why their school should be absent from the closure list. Their sentiments largely echoed those of the prior meeting, focusing on their respective school’s unique programs and character. Particularly in light of the feedback, the board largely emphasized how the data for criteria should be objective and quantifiable.
“I know for our community members it may feel like there’s other things that we should look at, but we’re closing schools because it’s a financial decision, plain and simple,” Board Chair Riza Jenkins said. “It’s not because we don’t like a school or we don’t think highly of a program. It’s not about programs. It’s not about anything within the school. It is simply a financial decision that we have to make.”
Directing most of her comments towards the crowd, Board Member Vickie Feaster Fornville stated how an advantage to closing one or more schools means having a more equitable district overall.
“This is no, ‘This school versus that school,’” Fornville said. “We need to think about the fact that until we’re doing better, where every single one of the schools that’s online is considered the best of what we have here, we’re not doing our best.
“So closing a building may very well be difficult,” she continued, “but at the end of the day, that means we will be consolidating people. We will be combining communities, bringing us hopefully more together to build a better community. We need to stop thinking about what’s right next door to us and think about how much better we’ll be, what’s down the street and around the corner.”
The public comments also reiterated a desire for future decisions to not only be informed by objective data, but accompanied by timely, transparent communication. Asking for staff voices to be involved in the process, representatives from the CHCCS Association of Educators said teachers are fearful about the impact closures will have on staff positions, particularly related to future placements and job guarantees for permanent employees.
Deputy Superintendent of Operations Al Ciarochi noted how educators, parents, and students alike need time to evaluate how a closure will inevitably impact them, suggesting the board give schools an ample “runway” — especially after it selects schools for the study.
“So that when [students] enroll [in a school], they know that when you redistrict in two years [they] will be going to this school at this address,” Ciarochi said. “And people understand that and they can prepare for it, as well as teachers can prepare, staff can prepare. There’s a lot of studies out there where people have had to rip that band-aid really fast because fiscally they couldn’t pay the bills. And that’s where they would say ‘If they had just been proactive and been ahead of the game, it would have been much smoother.’”
To view the full work session, click here.
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CHCCS Board of Education Discuss Criteria for Elementary School Closure Study, But Decision Still Unclear Chapelboro.com.
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