Glenwood Elementary school – part of Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools –  is scheduled to close at the end of this school year. And now, district administrators are recommending that part of the school’s Mandarin language program should be dissolved. 

Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Superintendent Rodney Trice recommended in an email to families on Monday that the existing Glenwood Mandarin World Language offering should not be relocated.

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“Continuing the existing World Language offering as a magnet at [other schools] would reserve seats outside the normal attendance-area process and reduce the Board's flexibility to establish stable school boundaries,” Trice’s email said. 

In June, the CHCCS school board voted to close Glenwood effective for the 2027-2028 school year. 

In line with Trice’s recommendation, when Glenwood closes, around 40% of the students studying Mandarin might not have that option at their new school.

For Glenwood Elementary PTA Secretary Jennifer Tang, who sought out Glenwood Elementary for her son because of its focus on Chinese culture, the superintendent’s recommendation is disappointing.

“When I was growing up in Indiana, I was one of just two Asian kids in the school. I always felt I was different, othered – didn’t fit in. I was embarrassed about who I was and how I looked,” Tang said. “[I wanted my son to] have a different, better experience – have that confidence from a young age that I could never have had for myself.”

Tang’s son is part of Glenwood’s separate Mandarin dual-language track which will move to Rashkis Elementary School after Glenwood’s closure. But even with her son’s program surviving, she says the elimination of part of the Mandarin program hurts the broader community.

Parents also say they feel the district broke its promise to Glenwood families. 

“I’m extremely disappointed because that is not what the board promised us in June when they said they were closing down the school,” Smrithi Swaminathan, whose child is part of Glenwood’s World Language program, said.

Asian American civil rights groups like Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) and Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) wrote letters to the CHCCS board in support of Glenwood families. 

APALA said, in-part, that it is “disappointed by the apparent indifference displayed by the board to the heightened sensitivities of the Chinese American community in your district.”

WRAL emailed the district asking if they have a response to families and the Asian American groups that have written to the district.

A spokesperson did not directly respond to those questions, but said, “We're comfortable letting Dr. Trice's [email] stand on its own for now, which we feel addresses some of the reactions and questions that are coming from the Glenwood community and its supporters. We also expect lots more discussion on this once we get to Thursday's Board meeting.”

The Chapel Hill Carrboro City School board will vote on Thursday whether to officially dissolve the World Language program.