Much of the attention around Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools’ future in the last four months has focused on the closure of an elementary school. Citing waning enrollment across the district and the need to take aging infrastructure offline, the administration and Board of Education took on the arduous process of studying school sites, selecting Glenwood Elementary and determining how best to redistribute its students.
Now, with those decisions made, the district and its families have another major one to face in the coming four months: redistricting all elementary school boundaries.
To close the Board of Education’s meeting on September 17, elected officials heard a presentation from Deputy Superintendent of Operations Al Ciarochi and researchers with N.C. State University’s Institute for Transportation Research and Education (ITRE) about the next steps to begin redistricting discussions for the elementary school communities. The goal is to generate the redistricting plan this fall before a school vote in January 2027 and implementation for the 2027-28 school year.
According to data forecasts generated by Carolina Demography for CHCCS’ school closure report this summer, only four of 11 CHCCS elementary schools are operating the 2025-26 school year at the preferred capacity level of 90% or higher — with five (Estes Hills, Morris Grove, Northside, Rashkis and Scroggs) operating at or below 66% capacity. Those lower capacity numbers represent both unused space, according to Ciarochi, as well as a misalignment of staffing resources. While Rashkis Elementary will receive dozens of students moving from Glenwood’s Mandarin Dual Language program, the rest will be redistributed — and many other families likely will be as well to streamline both the on-campus operations and transportation to schools.
Researcher Linden Thayer with SchoolCAMP — a school and community master-planning program that operates as part of ITRE — helped present to the board alongside its project director Matthew Palmer and school planner Kristen Brookshire. A Chapel Hill resident and CHCCS parent herself, Thayer presented the timeline of the group’s expected work to the board and said despite conversations around redistricting having happened for months, the researchers will not formally begin work until after hearing from the district’s community.
“We’re coming as a blank slate,” she said. “We want to hear about priorities and values. And so you’ll see in [our presentation], that’s all we’re doing in the first half of the community engagement work. We’ll come back with draft solutions later. And again, leave time and space for engagement around those.”
Seated from left to right: SchoolCAMP’s Matthew Palmer, ITRE’s Kristen Brookshire, and CHCCS Deputy Superintendent of Operations Al Ciarochi sit and listen as SchoolCAMP’s Linden Thayer presents to the CHCCS Board of Education on September 17. (Photo via Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools.)
ITRE identified four key groups from which it will pull priorities and anecdotal details: the Board of Education, schools’ leadership teams, the broader Chapel Hill and Carrboro community, and an advisory committee of 20-30 people made up of people from those three groups. Meetings with the advisory committee and CHCCS principals will precede a digital survey being shared to educators and families to gather priorities for the redistricting plan. Those priorities and challenges will then be presented to the Board of Education by ITRE in October — with the elected officials then holding a retreat with ITRE to further discuss how to craft the new elementary school boundaries.
Brookshire, who is also a Chapel Hill resident and CHCCS parent, told the board the research team defines success by starting with listening to school communities before having a transparent process of developing and adjusting the boundaries. Even after the first draft is made, she said, the process remains collaborative.
“When we come back with draft boundaries,” Brookshire said, “that is for everybody to review and provide feedback on and say, ‘Well, you know, this is how this priority is maximized, but we don’t think you heard us on how important this is.’ And that’s all that all goes back into the lab with us for the next round. So, that is always going to be very transparent.
“And then,” she concluded, “collaboration over consensus. Consensus is hard. Our goal is collaboration. There’s never one right answer and there’s not a scenario that everybody agrees on. But we want to get as close as we can working in partnership with the community, the board and staff.”
After presenting the draft in November, the planning group will hold another round of input sessions from the advisory committee, principals and community members before developing a final draft to deliver to the board around the start of 2027.
Rashkis Elementary School in Chapel Hill is set to receive several Mandarin Dual Language students after Glenwood Elementary School closes in the summer of 2027. But even still, there may be some students redistricted to another campus based on Rashkis’ capacity and families’ proximity in the plan set to be crafted by ITRE. (Photo by Elena Pace/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
After that process, CHCCS Senior Executive Director of Innovation, Strategy, & Partnerships Kendra King will take over. Addressing the board on Thursday, she said her staff is planning both the operational aspects of redistricting but planning “the human experience of this transition” She described the initial stage in the aftermath of a Board of Education approval as ‘listening and preparing’ to families before moving to ‘connecting and building’ between elementary school campuses where students will be moving.
“We’re really focusing on relationships,” King said of the second stage, which will take place in the spring. “What’s the shared experience, what should be honored, what should move forward with our students and families? Then, [we will be] ‘preparing to welcome.’ We want to make sure that there’s a focus on the receiving school so that there can be an exchange of those experiences and just to feel what it feels like to be there before it’s time [to move.]
“And last… It is the ‘belong and thrive’ [stage],” she said. “We look for that to be really all of next school year and, I even say, beyond that. We are making sure that we are monitoring the experience. We’re making sure that the transition has been as smooth as possible and just doing follow-ups. What can we do to continue to support?”
After an emotionally fraught school closure process — which included a split vote earlier on Thursday to dissolve Glenwood Elementary School’s Mandarin World Language offering instead of transferring it to another school — Board Members Barbara Fedders and George Griffin asked the research team whether the experience could better inform the redistricting process. Palmer insisted it could, with his team already observing and taking note of families’ feedback and concerns. ITRE is also digging through historical data of the district’s, taking not just the 2013 redistricting process into account by going back decades.
“We really try to exhaust ourselves in being both analog and digital across languages, across spaces, across portions of the community,” Palmer said of the engagement and communication efforts. “What you’re seeing in part in the reflection of Doctor Thayer’s engagement plan is designed specifically [for] and tailored to Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and certainly we see what have we learned from the last six months in order that the next six months go well… We need about a month to plan and make sure that there is a North Star [in the] vision of how this unfolds.”
The CHCCS Board of Education agreed to add a meeting to its schedule on Thursday, January 7, as the designated meeting to receive ITRE’s final elementary school boundary draft and hold a public hearing. For now, the timeline is to then take that presentation and public feedback into account while voting to approve a redistricted map on January 21.
More information detailing the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools’ redistricting and school closure timeline can be found on the district’s dedicated webpage for the project. The full CHCCS Board of Education meeting from Thursday, September 17 can be watched here.
Featured photo by Elena Pace/Chapel Hill Media Group.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
With School Closure Decisions Made, CHCCS Starts Elementary Redistricting Process for 2027-28 Chapelboro.com.
Hence then, the article about with school closure decisions made chccs starts elementary redistricting process for 2027 28 was published today ( ) and is available on chapelboro ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( With School Closure Decisions Made, CHCCS Starts Elementary Redistricting Process for 2027-28 )
Also on site :
- ‘Forgotten Island’ Review: H.E.R. And Dave Franco Give Life To Gorgeously Animated And Frenetic ‘Toon
- Princess Diana’s Brother Reveals What Bombshell Claims About King Charles Won’t ‘Be a Surprise’ to William & Harry
- ‘Survivor 51’ Cast Shares Their Biggest Weaknesses — From Irish Chaos to ‘Pretty Mean Girls’ (Exclusive)