Nonprofit plan for 2 charter schools, athletic fields near Hillsborough draws opposition

A proposed charter school campus with room to grow would give Orange County residents another choice for students and community recreation on the outskirts of Hillsborough.

Hillsborough developer Jim Parker is seeking approval of a conditional rezoning and master plan for the 85-acre campus on Lawrence Road, between U.S. 70-A and Old N.C. 10. The current zoning could allow about 60 homes on one-acre lots to be built on the site.

The proposed campus would instead provide room for two charter schools and several athletic fields and facilities, plans showed.

The Orange County Board of Commissioners will get its first look at the project June 6. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the Whitted Building on West Tryon Street in Hillsborough and will be livestreamed at orangecountync.gov/967/Meeting-Videos.

The meeting originally was scheduled for May, but was delayed after the county’s Planning Board cast a tie vote April 19. The advisory board voted again May 3, recommending 7-3 that the commissioners should reject the project.

Residents also have come out against the plans, citing concerns about increased stress on water and septic systems and more traffic. An online petition had over 1,000 signatures by May 10.

The first addition to the proposed campus could be a 600-student Western Triangle High School offering individualized, project-based STEM learning, similar to its sister school, Research Triangle High School in Durham, Western Triangle Executive Director and Principal Joseph “Joey” Webb said.

STEM is an acronym for education programs that incorporate science, technology, engineering and math.

The high school, backed by the nonprofit Triangle Schools NC, would open with 150 ninth-grade seats and add additional grade levels each year, Webb said. The Expedition School, a K-8 charter school near Hillsborough that gave West Triangle a letter of support for its charter, wants to send its rising ninth-graders to the high school.

Others could come from schools in Durham, Chatham, Alamance and Wake counties, Webb said.

Eventually, a K-8 school serving up to 800 students could be built next to the high school. There are two charter operators interested in opening a K-8 school, Webb said, declining to name them.

The campus could also have room for six parking lots with over 600 spaces, green space and athletic sites, including an indoor recreation center and tennis club; tennis, pickleball and basketball courts; soccer and baseball fields; playgrounds; and a skate park.

The town of Hillsborough won’t annex the site, which is about half a mile outside town limits, and the town’s Board of Commissioners opposed the plan at a February review. Under state law, however, the town must provide water and sewer service to charter schools.

The recreation facilities would be served by well water and septic systems.

Board members agreed the project could undermine the town’s future growth plans and further limit its capacity to meet water and sewer needs. Much of the existing capacity is already reserved for new and future developments, officials said.

It’s also an issue of fairness, because other Lawrence Road properties wouldn’t be able to hook onto the town utilities, they said.

Traffic challenges, athletic facilities

Traffic could be another big concern, since Lawrence Road is a heavily traveled bypass around Hillsborough, running between Old N.C. 10 and U.S. 70. The new campus could add roughly 3,500 trips to and from the area every day, project documents said.

The traffic study recommends a stoplight at U.S. 70A and Lawrence Road, plus turn lanes and other improvements, but doesn’t account for the indirect effect of more traffic on commuters trying to get in and out of Lawrence Road at the intersection with Old N.C. 10

The schools could stagger their start times to reduce the traffic, project documents said.

The Orange County commissioners are being asked to approve conditional zoning for a master plan that roughly outlines what could be built.

County staff would approve individual school buildings and athletic facilities as they are built.

Summit and its partners will build the roads and other infrastructure, selling the land to nonprofit or for-profit organizations that want to build academic and athletic facilities, Parker said.

The nonprofit Hillsborough Youth Athletic Association, which offers recreational and travel softball and baseball to between 700 and 1,000 children a year, could be a partner, HYAA President and Treasurer Patrick Cummings said.

The group’s headquarters and some fields are located on Orange Grove Street in Hillsborough, which is designated for an Amtrak train station and other development. It also pays the county $10,000 a year to use its Cedar Grove, Efland Cheeks and Fairview Park fields, he said.

HYAA pays to maintain those fields, as well as maintain the fields and provide utilities at Exchange Club Park near downtown Hillsborough and in the Schley community north of town.

HYAA has been in Hillsborough at least since the 1940s, and they looked at other sites, but they haven’t found a new home yet, Cummings said. The Lawrence Road site would keep them in Hillsborough and allow more weekend tournaments, bringing more money to the town, he said.

“HYAA is a very serious partner in this development and intends to build the fields quickly, and is financially strong, and has a strong board to make this project happen,” he said. “We’re not a bunch of yahoos playing baseball in the woods anymore. We’ve got an informed board with some smart people, and we have some money.”

Charter to complement local schools

Triangle Schools NC is also ready to build, said Joey Webb, the school’s principal and executive director.

The state gave West Triangle High School its final approval in April 2022, and the group also qualified for a $1.5 million NC ACCESS startup grant to help with construction costs, he said.

The grants are available to charter schools that serve more lower-income students, including with transportation and free and reduced-price lunch through the federal food program, he said.

“It’s a new problem for me to confront that people have a pretty fixed mindset against charters as these mechanisms of white flight and sort of country club charters,” Webb said. “There is a history of that in the state, but there’s also at the same time a history of charters that have done incredible work for communities.”

Despite the school’s expected regional draw, Orange County also has plenty of need for the foreseeable future, Parker and Webb said.

The county has more than 29,000 children under the age of 18 and is growing, he said. Census data showed Hillsborough is the fastest-growing town, experiencing a 58% population increase between 2010 and 2020.

At the same time, enrollment in the Orange County Schools district is declining, from just over 7,500 students in 2014 to roughly 7,000 students last year, according to state data. About 300 students left during or after the pandemic, data showed, and a recent report to Orange County’s local governments said a new school won’t be necessary for at least the next decade.

Some of those students are leaving to enroll in The Expedition School and Eno River Academy, two charter schools near Hillsborough that enrolled a total of 1,110 students in 2022, data showed. Eno River Academy had over 800 students on a wait list in 2019-20, the Western Triangle High School charter application noted.

Other markers indicate student enrollment could grow again, including the thousands of new homes being built in and around Mebane and Hillsborough. The Orange County school board is expected to start redistricting in the next year to ease crowding at some schools, while also wrestling with how to pay millions of dollars for construction needs.

That’s why they want to build in Orange County, Webb said. The high school will complement instead of competing with the Orange County Schools, he added.

“I want to be very clear: I have no criticisms for Orange County Schools,” Webb said. “I don’t seek a competitive relationship with them at all. We picked Orange County because we don’t think there will be one, because they’re growing so much.”

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