Wake school board votes to rebuild Ligon Middle, after months of debate over historic school

The Wake County school board voted unanimously Tuesday night to rebuild John W. Ligon Magnet Middle School, after months of groups disagreeing about whether to renovate or rebuild the historic former high school.

2026-03-03

Board Chairman Tyler Swanson said he hopes the new building will last another 70 years.

The vote includes a request for a tribute of some kind to the school's history, possibly located off  the South Haywood Street side of the property.

Ligon Magnet Middle was formerly Raleigh's only Black high school during segregation and is one of the few former Black schools still around in North Carolina, a history that is critically important to alumni. After integration, nationwide, Black schools were largely closed, and Black teachers lost their jobs.

The project will last at least three years after starting.

During the board's meeting, Superintendent Robert Taylor said he supported the district's "Option 3," which would allow students to attend school in the current building until a new school can be built on the back of the property, where the school's current athletic fields are. The other options would have required temporary classrooms while renovation or a rebuild on the current site took place.

During a work session Tuesday afternoon, board members heavily debated what to do to improve the school for the long-term and did not agree yet on a solution before the board's regular meeting and vote later Tuesday night. Things didn't improve during the regular meeting.

After debate passed half an hour, Board Member Lynn Edmonds suggested a special meeting for board members to think about what they've heard so far, which she said was full of new questions and concerns.

"I felt like we didn't have this discussion until today," Edmonds said.

Swanson said he'd already looked at the calendar and didn't think they had any opportunities coming up for one. He urged a vote Tuesday night.

"I think if we need to keep having this discussion, I am prepared to be here as long as it takes," Swanson said.

The board voted at about 8:15 p.m., about an hour and a half after discussion began.

Some board members were frustrated that the district didn't offer more options than the three first presented in December and felt the district already favored the option that would build a new middle school on the back side of the property.

"When I constantly hear about the options, and we talk, it basically is set in stone," said Board Member Toshiba Rice, whose district includes Ligon.

A divided community

Groups agree that the Raleigh school needs improvements, and the Wake County Public School System contends the building is too small, largely because the classrooms don't reach recent modern recommended sizes. The building has plumbing and electrical issues, too.

But the possibility that the building would be replaced, in particular at the bottom of a hill on the back of the school's property, has caused considerable concern among some alumni. They worry a rebuild would erase the school's pre-integration and post-integration significance, as the neighborhoods around it quickly gentrify and skew toward whiter and wealthier residents.

While the school system hadn't publicly stated a preferred option to renovate or rebuild Ligon until Tuesday evening, a rebuild on the back of the property was the only of three available options officials haven't taken issue with.

"The school board should keep Ligon where it stands, on the top of the hill, preserving a 'proud legacy," alumnus Dan Coleman told district officials during a community meeting in January.

Coleman said the district's magnet and busing strategy doesn't account for the gentrification of the area and has concentrated magnet middle schools in the downtown Raleigh area.

Some alumni told the school board Tuesday they'd accepted Option 3.

The former Ligon High School is a beacon of light, said alumnus Bobby Allen, who graduated from the high school in 1964 and a retired West Cary Middle and Enloe High principal.

"We can preserve that legacy... legacy is what happens in the classroom," Allen said, echoing other alumni who worried about the quality of education if the district chose to move students into temporary classrooms to renovate the school or rebuild it on its current site.

Ligon Magnet Middle is located just east of John Chavis Memorial Park, just north of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and right outside of downtown Raleigh.

The school has a magnet program, born long ago out of a plan to diversify county schools, and something alumni are proud of having. That also means the school has a mix of students -- those who live outside of the immediate neighborhood and those who live nearby.

Many members of the school community favor the rebuild, contending that the school needs to meet the demand of current and future students, who are too numerous to fit into the school and maintain quality classroom experiences.

The Ligon Parent Teacher Association voted last month to support the third of the district's three proposed options: Rebuilding the school on the back of the property, where the school's sports fields currently are. It would cost an estimated $121 million or more.

The vote was resounding in favor of the rebuild on the back of the property -- known as "Option 3" -- with 187 members voting in favor. Only two members voted to renovate the building, Option 1, and no members voted for a rebuild on the current site, Option 2.

"For 73 years, Ligon has stood for excellence, perseverance and dedication," the PTA's statement of support for Option 3. "To honor that legacy, we must ensure that the structure itself can sustain the demands of the current educational needs and the school's growth. That is the best way for Ligon to live up to its legacy."

Taylor has already formed the Ligon Legacy Committee to examine how the school's history can be preserved during the overhaul.

Problems with the current school

The school was built in 1953, serving the Raleigh school system as the only Black high school.

It was desegregated in 1971 and turned into a junior high school, later merging into the Wake County Public School System after the 1976 merger of the city and county districts.

It became a magnet school in 1982, part of a school system effort to integrate schools by attracting interest from across neighborhoods.

The school's magnet program specializes in gifted and talented, and academically and intellectually gifted programming.

While the school isn't the oldest in the district, it's in some of the worst shape, for years sitting toward the top of the district's priority list for renovation or rebuild.

Despite additions to the building, it's still too small, largely because the classroom sizes are smaller than currently recommended. The school has three classroom trailers to accommodate the additional students.

A 2021 Facility Condition Assessment, conducted by inspection specialist company Bureau Veritas, labeled numerous parts of the school buildings in "poor" or "failing" condition, recommending replacement that year. That included exterior walls, windows, plumbing, sinks, outdoor tennis and basketball courts, electric cooktops, floors and HVAC.

Many of the deficiencies were graded as such for being outdated, but some were noted for failing to perform, including appliances in cooking classrooms and outdoor tennis courts that are unusable.

The assessment recommended studies of the student pick-up and drop-off area, which they said was undersized because only the front car can move.

In December, the school system listed three options to fix the school, all of which would be significant changes to the school.

The options

The budget for the project is about $140 million. Here were the options:

• The first option was to move students to a new temporary campus on the current site of the school's ballfields, while the system renovates the existing building. The cost of the project would be $102.3 million, and the project would take 51 months. That option wouldn't meet certain goals that system officials have, which include expanding the size of the building and classrooms and expanding space for traffic to queue before and after school.

• The second option was to move students to a new temporary campus on the current site of the school's ballfields, while the system demolishes the current building and builds a new one. The cost of the project would be $148 million, and the project would take 56 months. That option would accomplish the goals that the first project would not be able to, and system officials say they could preserve the history and legacy of the original school through design elements on the new building. It would, however, be the most costly, take the longest and disrupt learning with the temporary school building, officials note.

• The third option was to keep students in the current building while the system builds a new school on the site of the ballfields. The cost of the project would be $121.8 million, and the project would take 45 months. That option would also meet the goals that the first option would not be able to. It would move the campus from the top of the hill, which alumni say they prefer, to the back of the property, lower down. The new building would be elevated to address that concern. With this option, system officials say they also could preserve the history and legacy of the original school through design elements on the new building.

The school system didn't note a preferred option until Tuesday evening, but they for months listed no qualms with the third option; they did with the first two.

Rice suggested the second option as a compromise that alumni could agree on, because the school would remain at the top of the hill.

But other board members couldn't stomach the higher cost of that project.

"We have a huge amount of needs in this county," said Board Member Sam Hershey, who chairs the board's facilities committee. The district will have to explore funding from a voter-approved bond anyway, and many taxpayers are already feeling burdened by property tax payment increases, he said.

Hershey said he couldn't justify paying more for Option 2, especially if it had more flaws than Option 3.

"How do I justify that to families anywhere, including in communities that have really been hurt by property tax raises?" Hershey said.

District officials said they could find the extra funding for Option 2 by delaying other projects, starting with the rebuild of Cary High School.

Swanson, who represents Cary, said he couldn't support delaying that long-awaited project.

Board Member Chris Hegarty was skeptical of the cost estimates, noting issues in recent years with designing and building two upcoming schools in his area -- Morrisville High School and Parkside Middle School. After discovering topography issues, the district swapped the locations of the schools.

"[The Ligon project] is going to be a lot more challenging than we're being presented with here," Heagarty said, noting the hill at Ligon that will have to be graded to house sports facilities.

School system leaders have said they want to preserve the legacy of Ligon if they were to rebuild the school, though there are no proposals yet for what that would look like.

Heagarty said he was disappointed the district and project developer didn't do more to focus on historical preservation from the start of the Ligon project, the way the developer had done with a historic high school in Charlotte. Developers said Tuesday that would be done in the design phase of the project, which they said hasn't occurred yet in the Ligon project.

Swanson encouraged significant conveying of history in the project, including telling the stories of people from the past or including a mural of the school's history, such as what exists at the formerly Black West Cary Middle School.

The district had looked at a fourth option that would have involved moving students to another location instead of building the mobile units -- units that many families said they didn't want.

But they couldn't find another location. The district doesn't have swing spaces -- typical in elementary school rebuilds -- for middle schools. District officials looked at several sites, but none could fit 1,000 students or magnet programs. They also looked at using empty space at Saint Augustine's University, but decided against it for a number of reasons. One was that they didn't feel the open environment of a college campus was suitable for middle school students.

Developers also explored the idea of keeping the school's auditorium and gym on the top of the hill, while building the school at the bottom of it, but they said that would have cost more than including a new auditorium and a new gym in the new building.

Community feedback

The school system uses a tool called ThoughtExchange to gather school community feedback on many major proposals that could disrupt the school community. Officials then rely on responses on the platform and any other community meetings to drive decision-making.

Participating in the ThoughtExchange is voluntary, and most people in a school community don't participate. While the school has nearly 1,000 students and dozens of staff members, only 159 people participated, sharing 129 thoughts. Thoughts were rated on a five-star scaled and up to two dozen people rated some thoughts.

Preserving the school's history was not a highly supported priority in community feedback provided on the district's ThoughtExchange tool. On a five-point scale, thoughts on preserving legacy garnered less than 3.5 stars. Educational excellence, minimizing disruptions, community involvement and modern facilities all had four stars or higher.

The district concluded, in a presentation set for the board's work session on Tuesday, that everyone agrees on the importance of minimizing disruption to students and prioritizing quality education during the process, while maintaining different ideas for how to meet the school's needs.

While many families, including PTA members, favor building a new school on the back of the property, some alumni say it could erase history. They already felt like the school lost something decades ago when it was converted from a high school into a junior high school.