Lake Norman Publications

Replacement schools in north Mecklenburg among potential CMS bond priorities



Seventy-two-year-old North Mecklenburg High School is among the facilities targeted for replacement in the evolving list of CMS priorities.  /Doug Coats

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is being upfront out of the gate as it begins phase two of community engagement sessions on capital planning leading up to a countywide bond referendum in November.

“We do not know at this time how many projects we are going to be able to deliver. We do not know at this time when projects will start or when projects will open,” said CMS consultant Dennis LaCaria during the first session held at North Mecklenburg High School Jan. 18.

CMS needs $5.25 billion to tackle a list of 125 school improvement projects, ranging from additional schools to new magnet programs. The top 40 projects alone total $2.88 billion.

Several north Mecklenburg projects are considered high priority, including the replacement of Huntersville Elementary School, Cornelius Elementary School and North Mecklenburg High School.

A new middle school is also planned on Stumptown Road to relieve Bailey Middle School, Davidson K-8 School and J.M. Alexander Middle School. J.M. Alexander would then become a full International Baccalaureate magnet middle school, and Davidson K-8 would revert to serving kindergarten through fifth grade.

Where will future CMS schools be built in north Mecklenburg?

LaCaria explained planners don’t talk about student capacity, but rather classroom utilization: the number of teachers to the number of teaching stations available.

“Because we intentionally weigh resources to schools with higher needs, that means that there are schools with intentionally smaller classes,” he continued. “In order to reflect that in our planning process, you see the number of teachers and not the number of students.”

Replacement facilities for Huntersville (above) and Cornelius (below) elementary schools are among the CMS bond-backed projects being considered. /Lee Sullivan

The net result is not a large addition of classrooms in the Lake Norman area despite rapid growth, but rather a shifting of students to under-capacity schools through magnet programs.

Claire Schuch, CMS’s director of planning services, said local boundaries will be adjusted once replacement schools and a new middle school are completed, but residents should not expect any major shifts.

“We want to meet (students’) interests while meeting their educational needs, and only change a boundary when necessary,” she said.

Schuch said the proposed middle school will relieve crowding at Bailey Middle School, which will be taking on students from Davidson K-8 when it reverts back to an elementary school. Schuch said the K-8 model has not been popular with families, with many telling CMS they feel their children are missing out on the traditional middle school experience with a wide breadth of electives and sports.

Removing grades six through eight from the building will also free up more K-5 classrooms for Davidson’s growing population. Schuch said CMS is considering creating K-8 magnet schools for families who prefer that model.

In order to shift students to under-capacity schools, the district plans to entirely revamp its transportation system to provide access to magnet schools for all students. It will do away with the color-coded transportation zones to ensure all students have access to magnets that serve the whole county, such as E.E. Waddell High School’s aviation and aerospace magnet program, LaCaria said.

Parents, educators and local representatives in attendance listened quietly to the presentation, but broke out in cheers at the mention of NMHS’s replacement. The school opened in the fall of 1951, making it 72 years old.

“Long overdue – we agree,” LaCaria said.

NMHS’s athletic facilities will also be replaced. Although the exact orientation of the new building and facilities has not been determined, LaCaria explained construction onsite will occur while classes are ongoing in the current NMHS. He said schools typically take nine to 12 months to build, and CMS can build on-site if the construction is 30 feet away from buildings to prevent disrupting classes. The same process will apply at HES and CES.

When parents asked how new buildings would fit on current campuses along with older buildings, Schuch explained modern schools are typically multi-story and have a smaller footprint than schools built last century. She said the condensed design is also safer from a security standpoint.

LaCaria said the district does not yet know how much money it will be able to ask for on the bond referendum, but without the bond, there is no funding for investments in the schools. If the bond passes, the first projects could be utilized by the 2025-2026 academic year.

Community engagement sessions will continue through the first week of February. The schedule and links to Zoom presentations, as well as slides from the NMHS presentation, can be found at cmsk12.org/page.9341.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *