CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — More than 100 parents spent four hours Tuesday evening doing what they could to advocate for where their child will learn for the rest of their grade school career.  

The district spent the past several months working on multiple plans to address overcrowding in multiple south Mecklenburg County schools.

The district has plans to open a new relief high school in 2024-25 and then a relief middle school in 2025-2026.  

This has led to multiple drafts that rework zones and the feeder patterns for those zones through elementary, middle, and high school.

Last week, the district released its final draft proposal.

At Tuesday’s public hearing, parents gave mixed reactions to the proposal, many of which included similar complaints shared in the past; socioeconomic makeup of the student population concerns over feeder systems, and distance from school to home.

Parents from Polo Ridge Elementary shared their specific concerns with the board over their child being fed into a new middle school and then into a new high school.  

“Getting a school built from the ground up is a massive undertaking,” one PTA member said. “It leans on parents; it leans on teachers; it leans on students. You have to start new sports. You have to start new extracurriculars.”

However, many parents showed up to push for the board to vote in favor of the current draft.  

One parent stressed that her child had been forced to go to a campus far away from home for years, and this draft would allow them to go to a school closer to home.

The board is scheduled to vote on the draft proposal on June 6, 2023.

However, at Tuesday’s meeting, multiple board members asked for additional data on the neighborhood makeup of those being rezoned.  

This could lead to addendums being added before a vote is cast.