CMS plans for new south Charlotte middle school revealed
The new school would be built in the Rea Farms area alongside a massive development of new homes; Rea Farms STEAM Academy would become a full magnet K-8 school
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New middle school to be built as part of a large development that includes more than 900 new homes; plan includes converting Rea Farms STEAM Academy to a full magnet school
Developer Childress Klein and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools disclosed plans Tuesday for 917 homes and a new middle school in the Rea Farms area of south Charlotte — one of a flurry of significant rezoning applications filed in the last few days ahead of a key deadline.
by Cristina Bolling and Tony Mecia
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools officials have been saying for months that they had identified land in south Charlotte to build a new middle school, and this week, those plans became clear.
CMS and developer Childress Klein filed a rezoning petition with the city on Tuesday to build a “mixed-use residential community with large walkable open space” in the Rea Farms area off Providence Road that would include a new CMS middle school as well as 682 apartments, 211 townhomes and 24 single-family houses.
The development would be built on mostly vacant land along Tom Short Road with access from Golf Links Drive west of Providence Road.
Plans submitted for the new school include a track, a baseball field, a softball field, parking and bus lots and a building that appears to be designated as three stories tall.
Who will go there? CMS has yet to draw attendance boundaries for the new school, but it’s part of a larger CMS plan that will involve converting the current K-8 Rea Farms STEAM Academy that sits off Tom Short to a full K-8 magnet.
Rea Farms STEAM Academy is currently made up of 70% neighborhood students and 30% of magnet students who may live elsewhere. CMS officials said recently that they’ve gotten feedback from K-8 families who would prefer that their 6th through 8th graders attend traditional middle schools with grades 6-8.
That means a new neighborhood middle school would need to be built to prevent serious overcrowding at Community House Middle School and Jay M. Robinson Middle School, which are the two closest middle schools.
Another reason the district can easily shift the Rea Farms STEAM Academy into full-magnet mode is that a new elementary school will open on Ardrey Kell Road across from Ardrey Kell High School this fall.
Plans for where to draw new south Charlotte middle school boundary lines are being worked into plans for new high school boundary lines, as the district prepares to open a new high school off Johnston Road and Community House Road in the fall of 2024.
The new middle school is listed as a $73M line item on a list of CMS projects associated with a proposed 2023 bond, although CMS officials have said funding for the land purchase was made possible by the real estate deal they made to build the new high school.
Area residents can look for boundary discussions to resume publicly this spring.
Cristina Bolling is managing editor of The Ledger: cristina@cltledger.com
Related Ledger article: “Neighbors not OK with CMS mobile classroom trailers” (Sept. 30, 2022, 🔒)
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Staff writer: Lindsey Banks; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Contributing photographer/videographer: Kevin Young, The 5 and 2 Project