CHARLOTTE, N.C. — At a Tuesday night school board meeting, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education reviewed a plan that could change where thousands of kids go back to school next fall.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is looking at changes to its assignment policy and updating school attendance boundaries for the 2025-26 school year. The district is still in phase one of this plan.
The four projects included in phase one would impact creative and visual arts schools, expand the Montessori program, improve school buildings and expand the early college program.
- Project 1: University Park Creative Arts and First Ward Creative Arts newly assigned attendance boundary will be adjusted to Bruns Avenue Elementary School.
- Project 2: The current Marie G. Davis K-5 recommended attendance boundary will be adjusted to Dilworth Elementary. Current Marie G. Davis 6-8 students recommended attendance boundary will be adjusted to Sedgefield Middle School.
- Project 3: Dorothy J. Vaughan Academy of Technology and Parkside Elementary will become one attendance boundary. All students will attend school in the current Parkside facility.
- Project 4: All current middle colleges (Cato, Harper, Levine, Merancas) will transition to early colleges, adding ninth and 10th-grade students to all programs.
At the meeting Tuesday night, multiple board members focused their attention on Project 2, citing capacity concerns at Dilworth Elementary that could be worsened by the transition.
The school, already over its suggested capacity of 560 students, could be at 740 students for a year if the plan is approved as-is.
"On the second day of school, they have just a little under 700 in the school today, so the 740 definitely would be a full school," said Deputy Superintendent Melissa Balknight. "We could make the situation work for those students to be in there for a year."
Students currently at J.T. Williams Secondary Montessori would move to the Marie G. Davis School.
CMS is building a new school at Park Road to accommodate the influx. However, the school wouldn't be ready by 2025.
“I think parents are really concerned," at-large CMS Board of Education member Lenora Shipp said. "What are we going to do to ensure success, every year is important, even this year, if they’re over capacity?”
Superintendent Hill suggested an alternative that would have this switch happening in 2026 instead to avoid overcrowding in Dilworth Elementary.
The district wants to make sure families and community stakeholders have plenty of opportunities to provide feedback on the plan.
Community engagement efforts started back in early 2023, so many families who would be impacted are already familiar with the changes.
"We have the presentation on our website, with a voiceover, where families in the community can review that," Deputy Superintendent Melissa Balknight said at a school board meeting on Aug. 13. "Any time a school asked us to come back and do an additional session we were willing to do that as well. Many asked for the virtual sessions which is why we had so many of the virtual sessions."
The next opportunity for community feedback will be at a public hearing during a school board meeting on Sept. 10. The board is expected to take a vote on Sept. 24.
Contact Destiny Richards at drichards5@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
Contact Julie Kay at juliekay@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.