• DPS Considers Closing Schools to Save Money
  • Messages of Resistance at a Raleigh Quilting Convention
  • ICYMI: What’s Playing at This Year’s Full Frame Festival
  • Rising Personnel Costs Complicate Budget Season in Durham
  • Free Outdoor Movie Screenings in Cary
Credit: Illustration by Nicole Pajor Moore

Good morning, readers.

Durham Public Schools is considering closing some older elementary schools in order to save money. It’s a developing story that you’ll probably keep hearing about for the next decade.

The issue, according to DPS administration, is that the district needs nearly $1 billion to deal with basic maintenance and repair needs across its 57 schools and other holdings.

“That [$1 billion] does not even include a coat of paint. That is simply taking care of what’s broken,” director of school planning Devan Mitchell said at a meeting this week.

Some of the school buildings (say, the 1950s-era Club Boulevard Elementary) are old enough that it could cost more to repair them than to build new schools. By merging pairs of older elementary schools, the district could also cut down on the costs of operating separate buildings.

But the word “closure” is basically a profanity in education circles, and, as nearby Chapel Hill-Carrboro has recently learned, the conversation is sure to get very, very, messy once people find out that their beloved neighborhood elementary school is on the chopping block.

So which 16 schools are on the “watch list?” Where would the kids from those schools go? What’s the timeline on all this?

Read below and have a good Friday.

—Chase

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Sewing Protest

At QuiltCon in Raleigh, quilting’s radical history took center stage, with works that commented on immigration, censorship, trans rights, corruption, and more, Colony Little writes for the INDY.

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Credit: Courtesy of the City of Durham

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Expiring federal funds and rising personnel costs are putting a squeeze on the City of Durham’s upcoming fiscal year budget, INDY’s Justin Laidlaw reports.

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