Meadowmont School to Draw From Larger Area

Mixed-use communities like Meadowmont that concentrate growth by combining residential areas with commercial space are becoming more prevalent in and around Chapel Hill.

Steve Scroggs, assistant superintendent for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, said the new school, commonly referred to as Elementary School No. 9, will hold 600 students.

School board member Maryanne Rosenman said the school is just in its early planning stages.

"The site has been chosen," she said. "Now we will have some public forums to try and get lots of community input before we go any further in our plans."

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education has discussed how to develop the school within Meadowmont. Some ideas presented include year-round schooling and magnet programs that would specialize learning at the elementary school.

"We are looking to see if it is possible to have a program that can attract kids from outside of the area," Scroggs said.

Scroggs said he hopes the problem of overcrowding throughout the district will be alleviated with the addition of the No. 9 elementary school.

Roger Perry, a spokesman for Meadowmont's developer East West Partners, said the school will draw students not just from Meadowmont but from an area large enough to fill its halls with children.

"About a quarter of (the Meadowmont school's) students will be residents from the Meadowmont community," said Roger Perry.

Jim Earnhardt, developer for Southern Village, another mixed-use development in Chapel Hill, said schools are a key element for mixed-use communities.

Southern Village houses Mary Scroggs Elementary School.

"If we are going to build walkable communities the first thing you need to address is a school that is going to be walkable for the children," Earnhardt said.

Scroggs said district lines that determine which schools students attend are drawn and developed by the school board to include entire neighborhoods whenever possible.

"The board tries to keep neighborhoods together while balancing capacity," he said.

"They can't overwhelm the capacity of the school."

The strategy aims to keep children from the same neighborhoods in the same schools, unless the number of children within the neighborhood exceeds the capacity of the school.

Less than 50 percent of the 580 to 590 students at Mary Scroggs Elementary live in Southern Village.

Earnhardt said the Southern Village development was fortunate to have a good working relationship with the school board.

"The schools were terrific to work with," he said.

"(Mary Scroggs) proved to be a great neighbor in our village."

The City Editor can be reached at citydesk@unc.edu.