CITIZENS AGAINST CLOSING CONCORD’S NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS

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On June 4, 2018 the Cabarrus County Board of Education will hold a public hearing regarding the closure of Beverly Hills STEM Elementary after the 2018-2019 school year. A date to vote has not yet been announced.

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On December 11, 2017, the Cabarrus County Board of Education will vote on whether to close the doors of Beverly Hills Elementary School forever, and send its students to Royal Oaks Elementary in Kannapolis. The proposal to close Beverly Hills Elementary foreshadows a disturbing trend toward sacrificing traditional neighborhood schools for overbuilt and overbudget “mega-schools.”

The Beverly Hills community is heartsick at the thought that we might lose our beloved elementary school. The effect a closure would have on the children, their parents, and the neighborhood is appalling. We — the Beverly Hills community — feel it is our responsibility to sound the alarm and warn our Concord neighbors who cherish R. Brown McAllister Elementary School and Coltrane Webb Elementary School: if our neighborhood school falls, yours WILL be next.

The FAQ section of the school board’s website contains this question: “Is the county trend toward bigger elementary schools and away from neighborhood schools?” The school board’s answer: “To be good stewards of tax payer dollars and for the purposes of growth, the current plan size of an elementary school is around 940 students.” In other words, “YES” – under the guise of financial responsibility, neighborhood schools are on the way out. However, it is not financial responsibility that is the driving force behind closing neighborhood schools, but a general lack of imagination in planning, and a failure to recognize that a school is so much more than a building.

Please sign this petition to let the Cabarrus County Board of Education and the Cabarrus County Commissioners know that Concord values its neighborhood schools, and our citizens will never accept any plan that locks the doors to our small neighborhood schools.