Will vulnerable chimney birds stop NC school’s demolition? District is weighing petition
A flock of feathered neighbors may keep hopes aloft for parents fighting to keep Beverly Hills Elementary in Concord from being demolished.
Cabarrus County Schools says it’s looking into a petition from community members who say hundreds of vulnerable birds live on the property. The national organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, has also called on the district to halt demolition.
The concerns come after the Cabarrus County Schools Board of Education voted in early February by a 4-3 count to close the aging elementary school in Concord at the end of the 2023-24 school year, replacing it with a pre-K and community park.
A $50.6 million, 750-seat elementary school will be built on the current site of Coltrane-Webb Elementary. It’s unclear whether Beverly Hills’ around 300 students will go to that school or be split up among others.
But district leaders said the closure was necessary to advance the district’s redistricting proposal, which takes effect next school year and will affect 3,988 of the district’s total 34,810 students.
Lawsuit effort
Parents filed a class action complaint against the district Mar. 26, alleging it failed to study how closing the school could affect students. It also didn’t adequately notify the community about a public hearing on closing the school, the lawsuit alleges. School district officials called the complaint “unfounded.”
“Nearly 70% of Beverly Hills Elementary School students are economically disadvantaged according to data collected by the school system. Despite such challenges, Beverly Hills is also one of the best performing elementary schools in Cabarrus County,” John Scarbrough, the attorney representing Beverly Hills parents, told The Charlotte Observer. “Permanently closing a school is a decision of great magnitude which affects children, families, and entire communities. As such, the decision should be made carefully and based on the thorough study required by statute.”
A judge denied a motion from the school board to dismiss the suit. All school board members completed depositions, and the lawsuit is ongoing. Scarbrough says he will seek an injunction from the judge, stopping to district from taking further action, if the district tries to start demolition before the lawsuit is done.
Protected birds on school property
Now, parents say there are hundreds of chimney swifts – small, ash-colored birds – living in the school’s chimney and the district must halt its demolition plans. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the birds as vulnerable, one level below endangered. One former Beverly Hills student started a petition to save the birds that garnered a total of 413 signatures by Tuesday afternoon.
At dusk, a vortex of chattering birds make their way from the sky into the school’s chimney a few at a time as the sun slips behind the building. Community members sometimes gather to catch the show.
“It really is a remarkable thing to watch,” said Lee Shuman, president of Save Our School, a group of parents opposing the closure of Beverly Hills. “Teachers have used them as teaching examples for the kids on migratory birds.”
He says several high school students who previously attended Beverly Hills remembered the birds and one of them started the petition.
“If Cabarrus County tears the school down, it will destroy one of the few habitats they have left,” the petition says.
The district says it’s paying attention.
“CCS staff have retained a wildlife consultant to determine if any chimney swifts are actually nesting at the site and, if so, where,” CCS communications director Philip Furr told the Observer. “If a bird nesting site is present, CCS staff will work with the appropriate local, state, and/or federal agencies to determine a reasonable, responsible approach and coordinate the timing of demolition and construction activities to limit ecological impacts.”
The population of chimney swifts has seriously declined over the past several decades, and they’re protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. It prohibits the killing, capturing, selling, trading and transport of certain bird species without authorization from the Department of Interior U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The birds cling to vertical surfaces such as cave walls, cliff faces and, most often, chimneys rather than perching like most other birds. They’re native to the eastern half of the U.S. and travel to South America for the winter. The birds will leave the school’s chimney to migrate south around September or October.
When a chimney is large enough, the number of swifts that spend the night inside it can reach the hundreds or thousands, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
PETA gets involved in Cabarrus demolition, too
PETA took up the birds’ cause as well after a parent anonymously notified the organization.
PETA contacted Cabarrus County Schools superintendent John Kopicki and told him of the birds’ protected status. Shuman says the opposition group hasn’t gotten a response. But the school district knows PETA is involved, according to Furr.
Shuman says residents remember the birds being there “for at least the last 10 to 15 years.” Now, he says they’re the newest allies in the fight to save Beverly Hills Elementary.
“You can’t move these birds until they migrate back out in October,” Shuman said. “Unless the district tries to do selective demolition and only tear down parts of the building at a time, they’ll have to delay it until then.”
Shuman is an architect by trade and says selective demolition would cost the district more money than holding off completely until October. If the district does do selective demolition and any birds are inadvertantly killed in the process, the district could be fined $10,000 per bird killed, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s website.
Meanwhile, new school board elections are in November, and two of the four members who voted to close the school are not running again. If the lawsuit and the birds can hold off demolition until the election, Shuman is optimistic Beverly Hills may stay open after all.
“These little migratory birds are, I hope, kind of a godsend,” he said. “It’s like the birds are saying ‘Hey, we’re going to protect these kids, too,’ or ‘Hey, this is our home, too.’”
This story was originally published June 5, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
