This article is part of a series on Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools considering three elementary schools for potential closure. The district is also considering Ephesus Elementary School and Glenwood Elementary School.
Located on 9115 Seawell School Road, Seawell Elementary School is one of three schools in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district at risk of closing due to rising operational costs and declining student enrollment. Seawell was built along the Bolin Creek Greenway and shares a nearly 90-acre campus with Smith Middle School and Chapel Hill High School.
CHCCS Chief Communications Officer Andy Jenks said Seawell, Ephesus and Glenwood elementary schools are at risk of closing because they are the three oldest facilities that are not currently scheduled to be replaced over the next 10 years. As a result, the CHCCS Board of Education voted 4-3 on March 5 to study the impacts of closing the three elementary schools.
If Seawell is to close, its students would be assigned to schools through a redistricting process, Jenks said.
“We have a decline in student enrollment, and we're currently operating more schools than we need, and so we're looking at possibly closing one or more schools in order to position ourselves for success in the future,” Jenks said.
Seawell has a diverse student population, with about two-thirds of its students in the 2024-25 school year coming from racial minority populations. It serves families coming from five continents, with more than 20 languages represented. Many families enrolled at Seawell have parents who are engaged in short-term academic appointments at UNC or in other faculty and staff positions.
Holding more than 400 students, Seawell offers a variety of unique educational components. The Learning Environment for Advanced Programming initiative, for example, helps meet the needs of gifted students through additional programming and electives. Seawell also offers many outdoor learning facilities including the “Critter Corner” animal barnyard, and it is in close proximity to the Carolina North Forest, which contains 750 acres of woodlands with access to trails and a diverse ecosystem.
Scarlett Coley, president of the Seawell Elementary School PTA, said her family moved to Chapel Hill for Seawell Elementary’s outdoor learning resources, garden, living animal barnyard and campus design. She said Seawell provides a sense of grounding and well-being in a world of technology, advancements and concerns about mental health.
“The kids can be outside and experience nature and the adjacency to the Carolina North,” Coley said. “So Seawell is in this amazing location where there's so much access to nature.”
Sarah Abrahams, a Seawell PTA board member at-large, said her family moved for similar reasons. She said students have unique access to more outdoor learning and are able to actively engage with the earth, even when transitioning to class.
“In this day and age, it's pretty rare that a public school offers the things that Seawell offers,” Abrahams said.
Seawell Elementary, which Niche and the U.S. News and World Report both rank as the district’s top elementary school, is the only school in the district on a shared campus with both a middle school and high school. Coley said it is beneficial for the young students to see older students care for them and act as role models for success, having a huge impact on them academically.
“There are two high school students that come twice a week to their class, and they are totally beloved by the students,” Abrahams, who has a daughter in second grade at Seawell, said. “And you know, their engagement is the result of that physical proximity, that closeness.”
Coley said while it was not the board’s intention, the process of the district deciding which school to close has started to get heated — but their school has tried to avoid adding any fuel to the fire. As members of the PTA, Coley said that their goal is to share information and help people understand aspects of Seawell that they may not already know, such as the nature-based campus.
Abrahams said that the potential closing of Seawell is impacting teachers, families who have kids at the school and people who are considering moving to Chapel Hill and are trying to decide where they want to live.
“I think this school community is obviously very emotionally connected and affected, and everybody has a lot of thoughts and feelings,” Coley said. “And I think that's districtwide.”
