'New' Raleigh magnet school to rise on site of existing one

Conn Magnet Elementary School of Entrepreneurial Design is about to be demolished to allow for a new iteration to take its place. Before work begins, students, teachers and administrators gathered to celebrate 40 years of Conn.

Norma Haywood had a reserved seat up front. She was the principal when Conn became a magnet school, as part of Raleigh's move to racially integrate its classrooms.

“I was happy here, students progressed. I miss it," she said as she watched children from different backgrounds performed on stage together.

Conn was built on Brookside Drive in 1955.

Since then, Jim Martin, chairman of the Wake County Board of Education says, it has been “passing on knowledge from one generation to the next.”

The current principal, Gary Duvall, will oversee the next generation.

“They are literally bringing it all the way down and building it all the way back up," he said. "That is the plan."

The existing building will be torn down and a brand new Conn Magnet Elementary School will rise in its place. The new school will increase Conn’s capacity from around 550 students to around 700.

For Duvall, it is about more than the extra space.

“Being able to get a new state of the art building like we are going to do in a year is going to be fantastic,” he said.

Haywood agrees.

“I think it is wonderful because everything has changed," she said.

Construction on the new building starts in June, the day after students leave for break. The new school should be completed in a year. While the work is being done, classes will meet in a temporary space.

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