Education: Kannapolis City Schools

A.L. Brown High School Renovations

Project Description

Use information from the campus study to develop a master plan for A.L. Brown including renovations and additions 

Background & Justification/Status

A.L. Brown is the only high school serving the students of Kannapolis City Schools and is in need of renovation and additional space. The main building was constructed in the 1950s and has not been renovated since. The classrooms are small (most are around 500 square feet) and have asbestos tile floors. The size of the classrooms is not conducive to today's learning environment and the asbestos is a safety issue. Cannon Gym is currently closed due to structural issues and needs to be renovated or replaced. The ROTC program needs a dedicated drill area and shooting range. The football and baseball stadiums need several buildings replaced due to age and code issues. The tennis courts need to be relocated to an area with suitable soil to house them. The band and chorus rooms need complete renovation including removing the tiered floor. Additional space will be required in the future to accommodate our growing enrollment.

Impact If Not Funded and Maximum Time it Can be Delayed

Kannapolis City Schools is in the process of procuring an architect in order to complete a master campus plan for A.L. Brown High School. Any delay in this process will potentially make any recommendations from the master plan outdated due to environmental, building code, or other changes. 

Total Cost: TBD

Years Funded: 2026

Jackson Park Elementary School Addition/HVAC/Roof

Project Description

Gym/Classroom addition, HVAC

Background & Justification/Status

Add a gym and classroom addition due to lack of current gym space and anticipated growth from the opening of a language immersion magnet at this location. Replace piping, insulation, air handlers, unit ventilators, VAV boxes, valves, pumps, ductwork, boiler burners, exhaust fans, diffusers, grills.

Impact If Not Funded and Maximum Time it Can be Delayed

Gym space has been needed at this school for many years in order to provide equitable opportunities to the children of this school. Classroom space will be needed at some point in the future for anticipated growth. Systems 15 years or older are beyond their life cycle per ASHRAE standards and need to be replaced. This expense can be pushed to later years, but a system failure could result in an emergency request. 

Total Cost: TBD

Years Funded: 2030

Fred L. Wilson Elementary School Addition/HVAC

Project Description

We would add 16 classrooms in a two story building and move the Media Center at FLWES (the media center move would accommodate traffic flow throughout the facility and provide for additional office and small classroom space).

Background & Justification/Status

The proposed addition would provide for growth increases across the district but would specifically address the immediate and future needs of space at FLWES. At the moment, there are 1,964 home sites inside the district approved by the city of Kannapolis. There are 796 approved sites in the FLWES attendance zone alone and one of the sites has roads going in along with infrastructure. All of these approved sites are on the Cabarrus County side of the district. Further, FLW is our most well-established magnet school in terms of duration and consistent enrollment increases. FLW is completing its sixth year as a dual-language immersion and global studies magnet school. This has caused steady enrollment increases over the last several years and currently 46 of the 467 students at FLW reside outside of the FLW attendance zone but are (and most have been for several years) participating in the magnet program.

There are no current additional classroom spaces available for use at FLWES. We have already modified the performance stage and created two small classroom spaces. The media center is used for classroom space at times. An early 2000’s addition at Fred L. Wilson added eight classrooms, expanded the office area (minimally) and added a gym. The cafeteria and gym space is adequate for the current use and future expansion. There is a desperate need for small classroom space and office space for itinerant teachers and support staff. Academically Gifted and small groups of students receiving special education services are meeting in the “atrium” areas of the 1960’s building. As a global studies and dual language magnet, FLWES’ growth and success has led Kannapolis City Schools to add an additional global studies and dual language magnet on the eastern half of the district. In the last eight years, Kannapolis City Schools has redistricted students to accommodate growth across the district. At this time due to growth there are only four classrooms available on the western side of the district and only seven on the eastern side. Of those 11, six are being used for STEM, music, and art. Explosive growth is expected on the east side given Kannapolis has installed water, sewer and gas to the Rowan corridor at the Old Beatty Ford Road exit in Rowan County (as a reminder, Jackson Park serves many Cabarrus County families and any increase pushes more of those Cabarrus County students back to the Cabarrus County side of the district.)

We have tentatively identified a site directly adjacent to the FLWES building for the expansion. We have spoken to Brian Cone in the Cabarrus County Schools Construction Office and Francis Layne, the demographer for Cabarrus County Schools. Our projections for growth are conservative based on most calculations used for determining the growth in attendance zones.

We also project that more than half of the approved (and sewer-allotted) sites in the FLWES attendance zone will be occupied by 2026. Further, it is important to note that none of our projections include in-fill housing that the city of Kannapolis approves. There are dozens of in-fill developments being constructed and most are putting several (4-6) townhomes on a lot. This is consistent across the district. With school building construction conservatively taking 24 months, if we started construction immediately, the additional space would not be available until after many of the available lots were built out.

Impact If Not Funded and Maximum Time it Can be Delayed

Given that initial site feasibility and architectural planning has not taken place, any delay will be problematic as we do not have the space on the FLWES site for mobile units while building an addition. Expenses for additional replacement parking (existing parking lots are where we would put mobile units) would not be a good use of taxpayer money as we will still need more than the number of mobile units we could put at the FLWES site. We project that, at best, we could put six mobile units on the FLWES parking lot and still park staff and buses.

Our city, and generally, north and west of I-85 and north of HW-73, has not experienced the growth of what most of Cabarrus County has experienced. Given the improvements in Kannapolis, the growth is obviously arriving. Kannapolis City Schools has always been a district that adjusts attendance lines in order to be a good steward of school space and funding, but the reality is, we will not be able to continue down that path without some facility expansion. We are out of space at FLWES and also at Forest Park Elementary. With no additional building space available at Forest Park, and no additional space available for new school construction across the district, expanding FLWES is our best and most economical approach for increasing classroom space in the district.

Total Cost: TBD

Years Funded: 2030

Forest Park Elementary School HVAC REPLACEMENT/ Gutters/ Playground

Project Description

We are proposing an HVAC replacement at Forest Park Elementary School. We based our projections for cost ($7,000,000) on the latest replacement work that Cabarrus County Schools did through the collaboration of their Maintenance Departments.

Background & Justification/Status

This would be a staged replacement for several reasons. In 2016 the chiller was replaced in an emergency replacement situation so that component would not need replacement at this time. In addition, the boiler looks to be in decent shape. From the back of house components out to the individual classrooms, air handler units and office areas are where our most critical replacement components lay.

Until we start replacement, we have no idea how much piping and other infrastructure would need to be replaced. We do know that all the exchange units in the classrooms would need to be changed out. They are all 25 years old and are failing consistently or are being held together in some cases with the magical support of our shared HVAC maintenance staff. The controls of this system need to be upgraded so as to have better control of the school’s physical environment.

The project will have to be staged for replacement of units when school is not in session because we do not have room to displace students while repairs are made. The special education classes within the school would have to be strategically staged so as not to interfere with their schedule or room placement due to impacts on their instruction.

Impact If Not Funded and Maximum Time it Can be Delayed

This staged replacement could be a benefit to capital funding resources as it will probably be stretched into two or more school years depending on start dates and times and the amount of replacement and repair required on parts of the system infrastructure. However, the need for HVAC replacement across the district is so great that this and future projects could perhaps be overlapped with funding for additional replacement/repair wrapped into the future projects.

The bottom line is Forest Park currently presents our biggest need and is in a critical state of disrepair to the point where individual classrooms could be without HVAC randomly, daily.

Total Cost: 7,000,000

Years Funded: 2024, 2030

Fred L. Wilson Elementary School Addition

Project Description

Background & Justification/Status

Impact If Not Funded and Maximum Time it Can be Delayed

Total Cost: 12,000,000

Years Funded: 2024