Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools plans to relocate one of its most popular magnet schools and end a five-year experiment with paired elementary schools next year. The first step toward that plan is a public hearing at a special school board meeting Monday.
The changes come on the heels of voters’ approval of a $2.5 billion bond package. CMS plans to spend $89.5 million of that for upgrades that affect Park Road Montessori and the two campuses of Dilworth Elementary School.
Here’s what the plan calls for:
Park Road Montessori, which serves about 500 pre-K to sixth-graders, would move to the Sedgefield Elementary building in August. That’s about two miles from the current site. The building, which dates back to 1949, would be demolished and replaced with a new 45-classroom school, which would eventually house the students in the Dilworth Elementary zone.
Park Road’s Montessori program is traditionally in high demand; last year 70 children got spots in the pre-K program while 125 landed on the waiting list. The application period for 2024-25 is happening now and continues through Dec. 29.
Sedgefield Elementary, which became part of Dilworth Elementary in 2018, would be renovated during this school year and over the summer to prepare for Montessori classes, which emphasize hands-on learning and multi-age classrooms. It’s currently home to almost 400 pre-K-2 students. Those students normally move up to Dilworth/Latta in third grade, but starting next year all students will report to that campus. The district has indicated it plans to relocate the preK classrooms.
Dilworth Elementary, also known as Dilworth Latta, will house K-5 neighborhood students until the new building on the Park Road site opens, at a date to be determined. At that point the elementary students will move to Park Road and the Dilworth school will become a magnet middle school.
The paired-school experiment
The Dilworth-Sedgefield pairing came out of a lengthy student assignment review that ran from approximately 2015-17. It was pitched as a way to relieve crowding at Dilworth, which had more than 700 students at the time, and make better use of space at Sedgefield, which had almost 400. It was also cast as a bold move to improve diversity, merging the zones for the mostly Black, high-poverty Sedgefield and the mostly white, low-poverty Dilworth.
At the time, some compared the move to strategies CMS had used for racial desegregation in the 1970s.
CMS also redrew boundaries, reassigning the mostly Black and low-income students from Southside Homes public housing who had attended Sedgefield.
Today, neither building is anywhere close to full, with combined enrollment of fewer than 700. The two campuses are among only seven schools in CMS that are at least 70% white, and their poverty levels are low.
The school board approved a similar pairing of Billingsville and Cotswold elementary schools in 2018. They’re also scheduled to be merged into one location at an unspecified date as part of the bond plan.
Speak at the hearing
Monday’s special meeting will be virtual. Speakers can get a link to connect online by emailing boardservices@cms.k12.nc.us by noon Monday. There’s also an option to email a statement that will be read by the clerk. The meeting starts at 6 p.m. and will stream on the board’s Facebook page.
