Students return to school in Cabarrus County after redistricting

CABARRUS COUNTY, N.C. — As students across the Carolinas return to school this month, one local district will start with a lot of changes. After redrawing boundary lines and reassigning thousands of students, some Cabarrus County families are looking at a new routine this upcoming school year.

Jessica Riley’s children – rising kindergartner Jacob and third grader Lilly – are at a new school that starts 30 minutes earlier than where they attended last school year.

“I was nervous because we were redistricted to this school,” Riley told Channel 9′s education reporter Jonathan Lowe. “It’s just gonna be a new adjustment and we’ll get into our own routine.”

Parent Angela Blakeney echoed similar sentiments.

“I live in the Carriage Downs neighborhood, and there was a big uproar in my neighborhood because they were afraid that we were going to have to switch schools,” Blakeney explained.

Helping with that adjustment is the state-of-the-art new STEM elementary school R. Brown McAllister.

Parents and students got to check it out during an open house on Monday before classes begin on Tuesday.

It opens with 650 students and has space for a total of 756.

The school got high marks among those whose opinions matter most.

Riley’s daughter Lily likes the library because “there’s a whole bunch of seats that you can read books in.”

R. Brown is opening at a crucial time for the Cabarrus County School District.

“We’ll be in excess of 35,000 tomorrow when we start school. This will be the first year that we’re over 35,” said Phil Furr with Cabarrus County Schools.

This will be the first school year with re-drawn boundary lines, which led to the reassignment of at least 2,500 students.

“We ended up with reassigning a little less than 10% of our student body,” Furr said.

Cabarrus County Schools Superintendent Dr. John Kopicki said the district stands ready to address any issues that may arise.

“Thus far, things have been going very well and smoothly. Any issues or problems that come up, we’ll deal with them,” Kopicki said.

The challenge will be ensuring those students make it to school on time and get home with no issues.

“Transportation is always the toughest part when you’re moving kids around like that,” Furr said.

It’s a change in routine that won’t just impact students, so being alert will be key.

“Expect some traffic. You got new traffic routes and kids going to new places, be at the stop 10 minutes early tomorrow,” Furr suggested.

Six districts in our area are headed back to the classroom this week.

Gaston, Lincoln, and Cleveland counties start back on Wednesday.

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