During a nearly two-hour public input period at a December 6 Board of Education meeting for Chapel Hill – Carrboro City schools, everyone was talking about the same thing.

What is the future of Glenwood Elementary?

The board ultimately voted 6-1 to approve a revised timeline for the implementation of a schoolwide dual-language Mandarin magnet program at Glenwood, pushing back the start date for any possible changes at the school to August 2020.

Board members voiced concerns before that vote that logistical challenges could not be met if a new timeline wasn’t adopted.

Affirming those concerns, superintendent Dr. Pam Baldwin said it would be a tight timeline between redistricting and appropriate marketing to parents.

“One of the concerns I sit with is making sure we are communicating with our families what they are choosing or not choosing, and to do that in this short time frame I don’t think is a good idea, nor do I think there’s enough time to do that marketing that’s appropriate.”

The issue of transitioning Glenwood Elementary into a schoolwide magnet is a debate that goes back several years, but in the past few months divisions over the issue have grown inflamed as the proposal edged closer to finally being voted on.

In September, a conclusion seemed to have been reached when the board voted to move forward with implementation a year later in August 2019.

But an outpouring of public disapproval and questions of unethical board procedure led chair of the board Rani Dasi to apologize in November. She said this decision had to be reached in an ethical and transparent manner and that the board was recommitted to make sure all community stakeholders were heard.

During last week’s meeting, board member Mary Ann Wolf said setting out clear parameters over the changes they were considering might go a long way to settling frayed nerves.

The adopted revised timeline sets out opportunity for community input next January. A new redistribution plan would be finalized in April 2019 before a new vote in May.

Also at the meeting, the board voted to elect Margaret Samuels as chair in a 4-3 vote that fell along the same lines as the September vote on the Mandarin language program adoption.

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