Fwd: Follow-up on Request for Retraction/Correction of NC State Presentation
Jennifer Tang
Hello,
Thank you for reaching out, and for your patience in my response. I apologize for the delay in getting back to you, I had hoped to share this sooner but have been away at a conference. I asked our team to follow up directly with ITRE for their perspective on the questions and concerns you raised, and I want to walk through each of them with the context provided. Please excuse me if some of the information has already been shared in your small group meetings with Board members last week.
On the two capacity figures used across Option 1 and Option 2
The presentation did not apply two different types of figures (a theoretical maximum for Option 1 and actual enrollment for Option 2). Both options are anchored in the number of classrooms required to house the program, not in enrollment. Option 1 requires 24 classrooms (12 for Dual Language plus 12 for World Language), and Option 2 requires 12 classrooms for a single track. That classroom requirement, not enrollment, is what drives the remaining capacity figures in both cases.
For Option 1, removing 24 classrooms from a receiving school leaves 0 to 2 classrooms available, which is not enough to support a full geographically assigned K through 5 cohort (a minimum of 6 classrooms is needed for that). That is why remaining capacity is shown as 0 and why the full forecasted enrollment at each school is listed for reassignment.
1) The current World Language students from Glenwood could be integrated with current Rashkis students.
Rashkis-zoned students could be offered the opportunity to join the World Language and be given priority for it per CHCCS Policy 4150-R, as is currently done for the Glenwood-zoned students.
Therefore, it is inaccurate to suggest that all Rashkis children would need to be redistricted under Option 1, which has led to Homeowners Associations and families in communities near Rashkis to become immediate, vocal opponents of Option 1.
Besides their language special (Mandarin for Glenwood, Spanish for Rashkis) and the extra STEAM special for Glenwood students, the Glenwood World Language pathway and Rashkis follow the same District curricula.
2) An Option 1 that preserved walk zones (per CHCCS Policy 4150) should have been presented.
3) The World Language program is not required to have 2 classrooms.
a. Last year, Glenwood’s World Language program had 11 classrooms of students because there was only 1 World Language class for 1st graders – this creates even more capacity to retain existing Rashkis students in the Walk Zone.
4) Many of the current Rashkis students will be redistricted because they live in satellite communities.
a. You mentioned to us at our 6/30/26 meeting that the district needs to do some “clean up”, so that students in satellite communities, who are traveling past 2 schools to get to their current school, are redistricted to a closer school.
b. Mr. Ciarochi also noted at the 7/16/26 Board meeting that the Rashkis satellite communities are not efficient from a transportation perspective, and that these children should go to the schools that are closest to where they reside.
c. Therefore, it is misleading for the NC State presentation to imply (on Slides 15 and 23) that the impact of Mandarin Program Placement on Rashkis will be to redistrict 321 students when many of 321 are going to be redistricted regardless of the Program’s placement there.
5) From our conversation on 6/30/26, we understood that NC State would not necessarily know the local context when presenting their numbers, and that it would then be up to the District to work with the numbers, and present scenarios at the 8/20/26 Board meeting based on the NC State numbers.
a. However, we have not seen the District or others (besides the Glenwood community) provide the necessary context for the NC State numbers.
For Option 2, removing 12 classrooms leaves 12 classrooms available for geographically assigned students. ITRE calculated what those 12 remaining classrooms can hold using the state mandated class size ratios by grade (for example, 18 students per kindergarten classroom, 16 for first grade, and so on). That calculation produces 226 seats.
We can agree with the logic that looking at Option 2 on a remaining classroom capacity basis makes sense, but the math is incorrect in ITRE’s Option 2 for two reasons:
1) The calculation for the 12 remaining classrooms should have produced 204 seats, not 226 as stated above (2 classrooms per grade multiplied by the class size per grade -> 2 x (18+16+17+17+17+17)).
a. This calculation was correctly used for the World Language number of 204 on Slide 12.
2) The “Estimated Students for Redistricting” column on Slide 17 for Option 2 is incorrectly calculated if the logic being applied here is remaining classroom capacity.
a. As per Slide 22, Rashkis would have 12 remaining classrooms for “geographically assigned seats/students”.
i. 12 classrooms x 17/classroom = 204 students could remain.
ii. Therefore, 321-204 = 117 students would need to be redistricted (not the 85 shown on Slide 17).
b. Similarly, Slide 22 shows Scroggs would have 12 remaining classrooms.
i. 12 classrooms x17/classroom = 204 students could remain.
ii. Therefore, 333-204 = 129 students would need to be redistricted (not the 63 shown on Slide 17).
c. We have provided a Table below to help illustrate the correct calculations:
*Northside and Estes Hills are not presented here as their total # of classrooms was not presented on Slide 22.
3) If the logic is that 226 students can fit in the 12 remaining classrooms (18.8 kids/class), then the numbers are still incorrect and should be calculated as follows:
In summary, please request that ITRE:
1) Retract and correct the misleading and inaccurate numbers in their original report, and
2) Provide an explanation for these errors.
We also request that the full ITRE Report (and not just the 7/16/26 presentation) be provided publicly for review.
On which school would receive Dual Language versus World Language under Option 2
The July 16th materials did not specify which school would receive Dual Language versus World Language under Option 2. The total figures differ depending on which track a school receives, since Dual Language and World Language have different program capacities even though both require 12 classrooms.
A specific recommendation on which school would receive which track has not yet been finalized, and that is one of the decisions the Board would need to make if it directs staff to pursue Option 2.
Thank you for clarifying, this is noted.
On the use of program capacity rather than Woolpert or SAPFO figures
As noted on slide 8 of the July 16th presentation, program capacity is calculated differently from those measures because it accounts for existing Exceptional Children Adapted Curriculum, Pre Kindergarten, Art, Music, and other instructional support spaces at each school. This is the same measure used in the June closure analysis and reflects seats actually available for general instruction, not total building capacity.
Understood, thank you.
On the sequencing of program placement and the full redistricting analysis
The two phase approach, deciding program placement in August and conducting the comprehensive boundary and redistricting study in the fall, reflects the Board's own June 4th action and was discussed at length at the July 16th meeting. Delaying the program placement decision would put the fall 2027 implementation timeline at risk, since the boundary process depends on knowing where the program is housed first. I recognize this means the full community wide redistricting impact will not be visible until later in the process, and staff are committed to making that analysis as thorough and transparent as possible once it begins.
Thank you for recognizing the challenging position we have been placed in, as the July 16 ITRE presentation made it appear to many that the Mandarin Program alone would be responsible for requiring other schools’ students to be redistricted, a position we never wanted to be in.
We would also like to note that the July 16 presentation (as well as May 7, 2026 study about potential school closure sites) did not consider the inconvenience or hardship that might result to affected students. The presentation only considered enrollment (with flawed numbers) and walk zones, and the May 7 study explicitly deferred a hardship analysis for a later date.
In fact, the study notes that the legally-required inconvenience and hardship analysis related to a school closure cannot be conducted independent of redistricting. We have repeatedly asked the school board to consider the impact on school culture and student welfare for Glenwood families.
Any study should also consider the travel times, academic opportunities, and cultural impact on all displaced students, including Asian students, which cannot happen without more information from the Board about how schools will be redistricted and therefore partial decisions should not be made absent a comprehensive plan for the district. As we are sure you are aware, this analysis is not just what district families deserve, it is legally required via North Carolina General Statute § 115C-72.
On transportation, staffing, and other factors
These were addressed in response to Board member questions at the meeting. On transportation, the closure study found no anticipated cost increase under Option 1, and our transportation team does not anticipate significant challenges under Option 2. On staffing, we would expect teachers to remain with the program track they currently teach. We are happy to provide more detail on any of these if it would be helpful.
Thank you for the above responses. We would appreciate it if you could provide the transportation analyses that Mr. Ciarochi mentioned at the 7/17/26 Board meeting. He noted that the Transportation Department had modeled out Options 1 and 2, so we would like to see this model and analysis.
Regarding the July 24, 2026 PTA email
Thank you for the specific questions raised in your most recent email. We want to give each of them the careful attention they deserve, and believe our upcoming meeting is the right setting to work through them together. Our goal for that meeting is to hear directly from you and the Glenwood community on the pluses and minuses you see in both Option 1 and Option 2, along with any open questions, so that we can document your feedback fully as part of this process. We look forward to a substantive conversation.
Thank you, we look forward to meeting with you on 8/5/26 to discuss these issues further and have our concerns and comments documented and addressed in a public report.
Sincerely,
The Glenwood PTA Executive Board
Sincerely,
Rodney
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Dear Dr. Trice,
We wanted to follow-up on our request for retraction/correction of the misleading comparison between Options 1 and 2 in the NC State Presentation.
This delay in the correction of the misleading numbers is causing additional harm to the Glenwood community, a community that has already been harmed by the closure of its school. The delay has prevented us from being able to meaningfully engage with many Rashkis families since July 16 as they incorrectly believe that moving all Glenwood students to Rashkis will displace their walkers and walk zone. They are citing the incorrect numbers in their communications to their families, such as in this website and the attached infographic.
This misleading narrative is particularly jarring because we believed that the comparison of options would be performed objectively and with integrity. We have spent hours developing and running our own models and performing our own calculations to ensure that moving Glenwood intact to Rashkis could indeed preserve their current walkers and walk zone. We have also wanted to prioritize walkers and preserve walk zones in our modeling, which is why we felt comfortable advocating for Glenwood to stay intact.
However, the misleading numbers have undone our ability to have such conversations with the Rashkis community in good faith. Some of our parents in the Meadowmont community have been harmed by their neighbors for even trying to suggest that it could be an option for Glenwood to move to Rashkis intact. Until the District speaks up about the inconsistent numbers used in Option 1 and Option 2, the Glenwood community is left with very little ability to collaborate with the school that will be receiving its students, whether Option 1 or Option 2 is selected.
As we noted in our prior email, Rashkis has a minimum capacity of 462 students, and the Mandarin program is projected to have 375 students in 2027-28, not 492 as used in the Option 1 table. So there is room at Rashkis for 87 of their students, including all 57 walkers. Preserving these walkers would be consistent with CHCCS Policy 4150. The option presented by NC State was not consistent with this policy, and was therefore, never a real option.
We have also noted that Option 2 significantly understates the number of children that would be displaced at whichever school receives the Dual Language program as it does not account for the number of remaining classrooms. The Dual Language program requires 12 classrooms. Slide 22 in the NC State presentation shows that Scroggs has 25 K-5 classrooms (after accounting for EC, and Pre-K). This leaves only 13 classrooms for non-Dual Language classes. Using the average classroom size of 17 children per classroom, this leaves 221 remaining seats (13 leftover classrooms x 17 children each) for non-Dual language children at Scroggs. As such, 112 (333-221) of the 333 Scroggs students would need to be redistricted, not the 63 shown in the presentation. Scroggs has not been informed where these 112 students would be redistricted to, if any additional children would be redistricted as part of Phase III, or what other changes may be imposed upon the remaining Scroggs children if the Dual Language moves in. Scroggs and Rashkis deserve to know the actual impact of Options 1 and 2 on their communities, so that they can make a true informed choice.
Therefore, the CHCCS community needs to be presented with a real Option 1 as a comparison to a correct Option 2, including an Option 1 that actually seeks to preserve walk zones, in accordance with CHCCS policy. We are happy to provide this Option for the community to consider and compare with the correct numbers for Option 2.
Given the delay in correcting the comparison numbers, which has impacted our ability to engage within the CHCCS community, we request that the vote on Option 1 versus Option 2 be delayed to September 2026. Even if the correction is made tomorrow, we will have lost a week of time for true community engagement, at a time when it is already difficult to engage others due to summer travel and vacations.
Finally, we were originally told that there would be true community engagement between the District and the Glenwood community to discuss the options after they were presented on July 16. We were told that the July 16 presentation would be “just numbers”, with District staff then incorporating contextual information to inform the final slate of scenarios, and that we would have a chance to speak with the staff doing this work. Contrary to what we were told, two apparently final options were presented on July 16, and we have only been offered 1 listening session on 8/5, which is insufficient for any sort of back-and-forth dialogue and consideration of the other party's ideas and concerns. It has also been difficult to include teachers and staff for the scheduled listening session as many are on vacation. It is vital to the success of our program placement that staff concerns and perspectives are included as part of these listening sessions.
In summary, we respectfully request that:
1) The NC State numbers be corrected/retracted immediately and that the CHCCS community is informed of the correct comparisons.
2) The vote for the Mandarin program placement options is delayed until September.
3) The District arranges for a series of meetings with Glenwood families before the vote, and not just 1 listening session on 8/5 as currently proposed.
4) The District works directly with teachers and staff to set up a dedicated time to talk with them to make sure their perspective is taken into consideration.
Sincerely,
The Glenwood PTA Executive Board
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