Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools facilities are overcrowded

Although the district has not seen abnormal growth, six of the 17 Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools facilities are over capacity.

Of these five, four are elementary schools, according to data from Kevin Morgenstein Fuerst, coordinator of student enrollment for the district.

Capacity levels vary from 118 percent at Seawell Elementary School to 86 percent at Frank Porter Graham Elementary School, showing an enrollment disparity in the schools.

Elementary facilities as a whole, however, are only 34 students over capacity.

Fuerst said the differences in enrollment are partially due to the fact that state-provided projections for population growth were inaccurate for the area.

“Projections are normally within one percent of the district outcome,” Fuerst said. “However, very small things can impact in a very big way.”

Seawell Elementary, which currently houses 84 more students than it was intended to, is using mobile classrooms that are not included in the school’s calculated capacity to meet the additional need.

“Even though we are overcrowded beyond our capacity, we’re not feeling it as in the past,” Principal Marny Ruben said.

Ruben said Seawell, which is home to the district’s gifted and pre-school programs, could not offer its additional classes without mobile classrooms.

The school has one teacher for every 28 students, an increase from last year’s ratio of one teacher to every 26 students.

Ruben said this increase is due to financial cuts, not higher student enrollment.

But Frank Porter Graham Elementary faces a different situation.

The school is 75 students under its capacity of 538 students and is currently under sanctions from the No Child Left Behind Act.

“You have to pass it two years in a row to get out of sanctions,” Principal Rita Bongarten said.

While the school passed No Child Left Behind tests two years ago, Bongarten said it failed by one student in the economically disadvantaged category last year.

With 47 percent of the school’s student population receiving free or reduced-cost lunches, the school teaches the highest number of economically disadvantaged students in the district.

Hoping to pass future tests, the school is using former exam results to determine what students need to focus on the most.

“All kids can learn, that we know,” Bongarten said. “We need to think about what they need to know.”

After the school failed to meet the standards set by No Child Left Behind, it had to offer students the option to choose whether or not they wanted to stay at Frank Porter Graham.

If not, they could enroll in either Ephesus Elementary or Morris Grove Elementary.

Bongarten said only eight students chose to leave.

“The families that are here like the school,” she said. “They like the diversity.”

A new elementary school scheduled to be built in the district won’t materialize before 2013, Fuerst said.

He said district officials are currently in the process of compiling enrollment data for the new school.

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.