Cabarrus begins boundary process for new Coltrane Webb STEM elementary, schedules public meetings

District planners told the Converge County Board of Education on Sept. 8 that a replacement Coltrane Webb STEM Elementary School will open next fall and that the district has begun a boundary study to move the school from a historically small downtown Concord catchment to a larger attendance zone. Dr. Bowers, who presented the project kickoff, said the new Coltrane Webb campus is being built for roughly 756 K–5 students (the school’s gross capacity is 756 seats) and will include pre-K and two specialized exceptional-children (EC) classrooms. Staff said those programmatic seats reduce the number of general-assignment seats and that target utilization for a new facility is roughly 80–90% to allow growth. The district staff described a planning process with an internal review team, data analysis (including day-20 enrollment, five-year projections, historical transfer and program-choice patterns), and stakeholder engagement. Two community meetings are planned: a kickoff on Sept. 17 at R. Brown McAllister STEM Elementary School and a follow-up in November to review draft options; the board would receive a recommendation in late November and final action in December so families can make program-choice decisions before the Dec. 15 deadline. Dr. Bowers said a legacy commitment will be honored for families who attended the former Beverly Hills Elementary School: the district will offer an application process for students who qualified under that legacy provision (next year’s third-, fourth- and fifth-graders who previously attended Beverly Hills) and communicate directly with those families to collect intent forms. Staff emphasized the guiding criteria for scenario development: capacity and utilization, feeder-pattern preservation, proximity to neighborhood schools, and demographic parity relative to district averages. Frances Lane, the district demographer, will contribute projections used in the scenario work. Board members asked about EC placements, program-choice seats and outreach; staff said the internal review team will work with student-services leadership to locate EC classrooms and will coordinate with the city of Concord to broaden outreach for incoming families. Staff estimated 154 former Beverly Hills students remained in the district at the end of 2024–25 and said they will refresh that count after day 20 to determine how many legacy seats to plan for. The board will be updated monthly on the project as staff develop boundary options.