Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools may ultimately target closing just one elementary school instead of two, according to discussions during the Board of Education’s work session on Thursday.
Board members heard a presentation from CHCCS staff about the eight criteria approved in March for deeper studies on three elementary schools — Ephesus Elementary School, Glenwood Elementary School and Seawell Elementary School — to help inform the elected officials on potential closures amid a decline in enrollment and district-wide financial constraints. Coming into the evening, Deputy Superintendent of Operations Al Ciarochi had told the board that the finances and capacity levels might suggest closing two of those three schools would be helpful for the district’s long-term vitality.
But on Thursday, he said the latest data gathered during the studies helped further contextualize the issue and reflect the CHCCS’ capability of addressing its capacity challenges through a mix of closure and redistricting. It started with Carolina Demography adding housing data into its projections for student enrollment through 2036 and projecting far less of a net loss of elementary school students (-111) compared to the net loss from the last decade (-1,200).
Ciarochi said the school district adding in its own program capacity metric — taking into account educational programs, class sizes, and how physical spaces are currently used in addition to the overall physical space — led to “a second epiphany” for him and other staff alongside the updated enrollment projections. While the district is operating under the target utilization right now for elementary schools (81% of program capacity), closing one school would put CHCCS in the optimal range (85% to 95% capacity) while closing school would leave it with little room for any growth (95% to 100% capacity).
“Based upon our diligence, going through our criteria for school closure, I would only be able to recommend closing one school…not two,” Ciarochi said. “So, for your consideration, it’s either no schools to close or one schools to close. But I and our staff cannot recommend that you try to pack the closure of two schools within the redistricting and the process when it comes to program capacity.”
The deputy superintendent went on to say the districts’ diligence studies helped reframe the urgency of school closures through purely an infrastructure lens. He said while many of CHCCS’ schools have urgency infrastructure needs — some of which are why Orange County is funding the replacement of Carrboro Elementary and Estes Hills Elementary — the school district can ultimately weigh capital project needs less than other criteria because the level of maintenance for every school is so expensive.
“Am I right to say that it’s less dire than it seemed when we started this process,” Board Member Barbara Fedders asked after Ciarochi finished his presentation. “It kinda seems not as terrible.”
Ciarochi responded by saying the enrollment issue has “simmered,” while the infrastructure needs remain consistent — but will likely never be addressed outside of emergency repairs based on the consistent lack of county and state government funding.
“It started at [a high urgency] because we saw the decline [of enrollment],” Ciarochi said of the school closure discussion, which began last August. “The piece that was missing was the program capacity. We were using legacy numbers — and I think it started the conversation and it got us moving in the right direction — but I think it’s one of the best things out of the diligence process. We have to do program capacity no matter what, because we have to redistrict. And by including that in the initial study, I think it is allowing us to make a better informed decision so that we didn’t over-do what we thought we were going to do.”
To help give the CHCCS community access to the study, the school district launched a new website called ‘CHCCS Together’ that provides links to the study of Ephesus, Glenwood and Seawell elementary schools. It also features a ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ page about the school closure discussion and a timeline of both the board’s decisions and district’s presentations.
Still, the likely closure of an elementary school and the resulting redistricting necessary to find different spots for those students and families presents a daunting task for the Board of Education, district staff and CHCCS families. The current timeline for any closure decision would see the 2026-27 academic year be the last for the chosen school before redistricting distributes the students for the 2027-28 school year.
Many of the school board’s comments on Thursday after Ciarochi’s presentation focused on what options remained for limiting disruption across the district based on a closure and the subsequent redistricting. Board Member Rani Dasi shared her priorities in her decision-making — and was the lone board member to share an early indication of which school she might be leaning toward closing.
“It really makes me think about how do we preserve programming, how do we think about what sites would impact transportation in the least way,” Dasi asked. “And so that leads me to Glenwood [Elementary] as a potential site for school closure. How to do we think about redistricting in a way that preserves our commitment to programming? Is there an option to convert another school to a magnet school and take at least some element of the programs that exist at Glenwood to that location?”
Ciarochi said, framing Glenwood Elementary purely as an example, it would make logistical sense for closure and in redistricting because it is purely a magnet school. Glenwood’s two programs, a STEAM-focused track and a dual-language Mandarin track, are based on a lottery system and enrollment is not dictated by address like many of the other CHCCS elementary schools are. The deputy superintendent said those two programs could be split into schools that have the capacity to handle one or the other — which would improve the likelihood of retention for staff and limit how many students would have entirely new travel patterns. But Ciarochi made clear multiple times during the work session the district staff do not have any recommendation on which of the three schools, if any, to ultimately close.
The next steps in the discussion will come on Thursday, May 21, when the CHCCS Board of Education will hold a public hearing on the subject of closing any of the three elementary schools being reviewed and the related impacts to the district. The ‘CHCCS Together’ website also has a contact form for the public to share its feedback to the board through.
Featured photo via Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools’ livestream.
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