UPDATE NOVEMBER 28th, 2023

Once again the Board of Education is being presented with a total of three scenarios, all of which show the closure of Beverly Hills Elementary School.  CCS Staff is working with an outside consulting firm, Cooperative Strategies, LLC, with offices in California, Colorado, Ohio, and Texas to present recommendations to the Board of Education during the redistricting plan to vote on.  In 2019 the previous BOE voted unanimously to keep BHES open and place it on the 10 year plan to be rebuilt in its current location.  During the meeting, board members stressed to the staff and public the importance of rebuilding BHES on its current site.  What has changed in leadership within CCS to go from a vision of replacing BHES to closing its doors?  It is unfortunate that CCS staff and leadership has placed the current Board of Education in this position after it was unanimously voted on to be replaced on the 10 year plan in 2019. We feel this BOE will make the right decision once they have received all of the facts from previous studies, new information, and community support. 
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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.