Glenwood Elementary School will close in the fall of 2027, after the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education voted unanimously on Thursday night and ended a months-long discussion around the potential sunsetting of three elementary campuses.
Members voted 7-0 in favor of Glenwood instead of Epehesus Elementary or Seawell Elementary schools. All board members who shared comments on Thursday, as well as the district, voiced support of preserving Glenwood’s dual-language and world language programs amid a redistricting process now expected ahead of the 2027-28 academic year. Additionally, the board passed a motion tasking the school district’s leadership with presenting before or on its scheduled August board meeting of options for where the programs could be housed.
The decision is the culmination of months of deliberation within the Board of Education members — and emotional strife within the school district’s community — about how to approach addressing a decline in elementary school enrollment alongside the need for financial efficiency. The CHCCS administration began posing the idea of a school closure to the board last August, with Deputy Superintendent of Operations Al Ciarochi initially asking the board members to consider closing two schools before revising his recommendation in May to only one. On Thursday, Ciarochi restated that the district’s recommendation was considering one school for closure.
After determining in March which schools to consider, the board then chose what criteria it wanted the district administration to study and build a report on — which not only influenced Thursday’s discussion, but is a required step by North Carolina law before closing a public school campus.
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools’ total enrollment in the 2025-26 academic year is roughly 10,700 students, its lowest enrollment in two decades, and comes after seeing net losses to its elementary and middle school populations since 2020. Since North Carolina state legislature funding for public school is on a per-pupil basis, CHCCS is facing a steady decline in state allocation thanks to those numbers and is looking for more financial sustainability after depleting its fund balance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, some of the district’s elementary schools are operating at under capacity for students and many are decades into their usage, leading to high costs and repairs.
Glenwood Elementary’s building is one of the oldest in the district at 72 years old, behind only the Lincoln Center where Phoenix Academy High School and administrative offices are housed. Seawell Elementary is 55 years old and Ephesus Elementary is 53, making all three schools ‘potential replacement’ candidates by 2034, according to the Woolpert study commissioned by Orange County. Beyond hypothetical savings prevented from needing to repair any major equipment or infrastructure problems, Ciarochi and district staff said closure of one elementary school could save $1.7 million annually in recurring operational costs.
Glenwood Elementary also features a different student make-up than Ephesus and Seawell. Having operated with dual-language program since 2022 and adopting a magnet concept in 2019, Glenwood offers both a Mandarin track and a STEAM-focused learning track to students — which feature a lottery system where enrollment is not dictated by CHCCS’ student districting. Many of the Board of Education members who shared remarks about their decisions on Thursday cited how students were not geographically assigned to the school compared to Ephesus and Seawell, which would limit disruption and transportation costs.
The entrance to Glenwood Elementary School on Thursday, June 4, 2026. (Photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Dozens of speakers at public comment, with many being Glenwood Elementary parents and some students. Many shared their concern that students, especially Asians, would face a higher risk of discrimination and not being welcomed if the program was moved onto another campus. Others shared fears that either program offered at Glenwood would not be the same if the two were split up and at different schools. Parents of Seawell and Ephesus students also spoke, sharing testimonies of their children’s experiences and urging board members not to close their respective campus.
According to officials and the CHCCS-run website CHCCS Together, the next step in this process will be studying student geolocation and working to redistrict Chapel Hill and Carrboro’s schools in the winter to cover for Glenwood Elementary’s closure. Ciarochi said the district’s target is to implement a redistricted school system for the Fall of 2027, which would be the first academic year Glenwood is closed.
This is a developing story and will be updated further.
Featured photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.
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