The Chatham County Board of Education voted unanimously last week to approve Scenario 3 for Seaforth High School’s attendance zone.
After months of public input sessions overwhelmingly supporting Scenario 2, some community members are disappointed in the board’s decision at its Aug. 10 regular meeting. In their support of Scenario Two, many citizens stated significant concern about other options that would “cluster affluence” at Seaforth. The new high school, located off of U.S. Hwy. 64 near Jordan Lake, configured its attendance zone from the existing Northwood High School attendance zone, due in no small part to significant overcrowding at Northwood.
“There are consequences for these kinds of decisions,” Chatham County resident Kimrey Rhinehardt said. “I feel that Scenario 2 gave both Northwood and Seaforth the best chance. A lot of other people share my opinion — the board disagrees, but I’m just I’m very disappointed by their decision.”
Gary Leonard, chairman for the Board of Education, told the News + Record that there were five priorities — balancing capacity utilization, demographic balancing, maintaining feeder school patters, maximizing student proximity to existing schools and miniimizing reassignment impact — and 11 “benefits” the board used to come to its decision. He said the benefits, all details under each of the five priorities, were “outgrowths of the board members’ discussions” over the last three years.
“One of the biggest factors that determined my vote for Scenario 3 was that Scenario 2 would have sent students that would live directly across the street from the entrance to Northwood to Seaforth, which is approximately 9 miles away,” Leonard said, referring to the building of Chatham Park North across from Northwood High School’s entrance in Pittsboro. The 7,100-acre Chatham Park mixed-use development is expected to add over 20,000 homes to Pittsboro over the next three decades, with the homeside across from Northwood currently expected to be complete in 2025. “Scenario 3 also does a slightly better job of balancing the racial makeup of the two schools.”
The board partnered with N.C. State’s Operations Research and Education Laboratory (OREd), a third-party evaluation research group that assists with school planning processes, to gather such data to help make the rezoning decision. Leonard said the board was focused on balancing the racial makeup of the two schools more than yielding higher diversity demographics at the new high school.
Scenario 2 zones Briar Chapel to Northwood and all of Chatham Park to Seaforth and Scenario 3 zones Briar Chapel to Seaforth and Chatham Park splits between Northwood and Seaforth. Based on demographic data provided by OREd, Scenario 2 would yield slighly more racial and socioeconomic diversity at Seaforth than the other scenarios. Under Scenario 2, OREd projected 60.7% white students at Seaforth and 65% at Northwood, while under Scenario 3 there would be 64.2% white students at Seaforth 62.3% at Northwood. In regards to socioeconomic diversity, Scenario 2 would have 34.5% of Seaforth students receiving free and reduced lunch and 24% of Northwood students. Under Scenario 3, those trends are flipped, with 24.9% of Seaforth students receiving free and reduced lunch and 34.5% of Northwood students.
Marti Rivadeneira, a middle school parent in Chatham, began communication regarding her concerns with Chris Blice, CCS chief operations officer, in early June. After the vote, she was particularly upset that Briar Chapel would now end up with another new school, after already being zoned at Margaret B Pollard Middle School and Chatham Grove Elementary.
“Scenario 2 is the best option we have. Scenario 2 creates two high schools of equal size. Scenario 2 creates two high schools of comparable socio-economics. Scenario 2 creates two high schools of similar diversity,” Rivadeneira wrote in an email to the board members prior to the Aug. 10 meeting. “Scenario 2 will accomplish this from the start, not 10 years from now with the buildup of Chatham Park North. 2020 has been a year of reckoning. With so much social and racial injustice, I cannot sit by and be silent when I feel so strongly that Scenario 3 is unjust and partial to those that have more.”
In an email sent to Superintendent Derrick Jordan and Blice, she raised concerns over Briar Chapel being taken from Northwood’s attendance zone, stating: “When you remove a large development like Briar Chapel, you also pull the private funds and support those families bring.”
Rhinehardt, who is a parent of a student at Northwood, said she wished there had been more focus about how to keep Northwood strong, rather than centering Seaforth’s needs in most board conversations.
“There was no discussion of how do we maintain the academic rigor and opportunities at both schools — it can’t just be about butts in seats,” she said.
She echoed Rivadeneira’s concerns about cutting Northwood’s student population too quickly.
“I’m a parent of a student at Northwood High School that this will not affect, so I’m coming from a place of, ‘I care about my community.’ I care about Northwood High School because my daughter’s had an incredibly fabulous experience there,” Rhinehardt said. “When I look at what’s there now, and then I think about cutting that in half in five years — just what does that look like? What are the programs? There’s been no discussion of that.”
Data from OREd said Chatham Park will likely generate an equal number of high school students at Northwood as at Briar Chapel between 2027 and 2031, a finding that Leonard said influenced the board’s decision. He praised the work of Superintendent Jordan and the other board members and said he was confident of their committed efforts to give all students a quality education.
“We knew this would be a complex project. That’s why we started so early,” Leonard said. “I believe that this was the best choice the board could make at this time.”
Seaforth is set to open in fall 2021 to 9th and 10th graders, and will eventually support 1,200 students. Northwood currently has 1,400 students but according to OREd projections, will have approximately 1,056 students in 2021-22 and 781 by 2025-26 under Scenario 3.
Reporter Hannah McClellan can be reached at hannah@chathamnr.com.