This article originally appeared in WFAE reporter Ann Doss Helms' weekly education newsletter. To get the latest school news in your inbox first, sign up for our email newsletters here.
When Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools rolled out its post-desegregation “choice plan” almost 21 years ago, a lot of attention focused on the emergence of stratified urban and suburban schools. Suddenly majority-white suburban schools were overflowing, while urban Charlotte schools saw poverty levels spike, white enrollment plummet and many classrooms sit empty.
But there was another group of schools that didn’t fit either category, schools that some called the middle ring. At places like South Mecklenburg and East Mecklenburg high schools, racial and economic diversity prevailed. But it felt like a fragile balance at the time, and it remains so.
Much has changed: CMS has revised its assignment rules many times. Mecklenburg County has grown more racially, linguistically and ethnically diverse; CMS now has students representing 184 countries, and Latino enrollment surpassed white enrollment a few years ago. If anything, economic stratification has become more pronounced, even as individual neighborhoods shift with development and gentrification.
As I reported this week, South Meck and some of the nearby schools are fighting to retain a balance as new schools open to cope with suburban crowding.
The latest boundary wrangling illustrates several perennial challenges.
Planning construction needs years in advance
The new southern high school that’s driving the current boundary changes is part of a priority list that CMS started working on more than seven years ago. Voters approved bonds to cover the cost in 2017 — and a couple of years after that enrollment in CMS and many other districts began leveling off. School closings during the COVID-19 pandemic scrambled enrollment numbers further.
Now CMS is seeking approval from county commissioners and Mecklenburg voters to borrow money for another seven years worth of projects, including a new southern middle school that’s being factored into the current plan.
It’s worth noting that CMS isn’t legally locked into construction plans after bonds are approved; the ballot includes a dollar total, not a project list. But as a practical matter, betraying bond campaign promises would hobble future efforts, so plans laid out now will be politically binding for years to come.
How to address pockets of disadvantage
As many people have noted, it’s hard to create economically diverse neighborhood schools when Mecklenburg’s housing patterns are segregated. One school of thought holds that socioeconomic diversity should be a top priority, even if that means some students are bused farther. That’s a point some are making when they urge the board to revise the south boundary plan to avoid letting South Meck become a Title I school. That’s federal jargon for schools with the highest poverty levels.
Others focus on doing more to get top teachers and other resources to disadvantaged kids, rather than assigning those students to more balanced schools. That’s a point new school board member Dee Rankin, former chair of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Black Political Caucus education committee, made at the last board meeting.
Rankin used his comment time to chide people who talk about Title I as if it’s synonymous with failure: “Title I schools are just as good. It’s our job to provide the resources and the necessary educational services that they need to be successful. … I want to make sure the students know that you’re smart and that you are gifted and we are here to help you be successful.”
Rankin told me last week he thinks some people are unrealistic about how much control the school board has. The area around South Meck has wealthy neighborhoods and low-income housing and little in between, he said: “You either have Gleneagles or Pine Valley.”
Who gets caught when the music stops?
Some people seem to think CMS planners lock themselves in an office to draw boundaries, then hold public engagement sessions for show. But history has shown the district does respond to public pressure and ideas, and some communities are great at drawing up plans and making their voices heard.
Others are not. And they’re the folks who sometimes get surprised when a revised plan affects them and the board votes before they’re aware.
The current plans for middle and high school boundaries affect people living in the zones for 12 elementary schools. Some parents are pushing to add the Sterling Elementary zone, saying those students should go to the new high school to help balance socioeconomic status. Meanwhile, other parents and board member Lisa Cline want CMS to consider adding a neighborhood boundary for Waddell High in southwest Charlotte, a move that would potentially affect assignments across the west/southwest area.
This has already been an extraordinarily long process, and the board wants to put it to rest next month. I’m skeptical that CMS will make major changes at this point, but we’ll find out Wednesday when the district rolls out what it’s calling Draft 2. It’s actually Draft 14, if you count a dozen color-coded maps CMS created starting last spring.
Twenty years and counting of helping teachers
When I showed up at Classroom Central last week, I told Communications Director Emily Cook I had covered the opening of the warehouse that provides free classroom supplies to teachers. She assumed I meant the February reopening after renovations, because the opening had happened more than 20 years ago.
Exactly. I filed a story for the Observer in October 2002 about the Charlotte Chamber’s launch of a community effort to support CMS and its teachers. And it’s great to see it still going strong, now serving six districts and 237 schools.
“I was one of the teachers that went there the year it opened. I still remember how excited we were to get free stuff instead of spending our own money,” one Facebook friend said when I posted about the visit. Said another: “I used to stock my classroom with a supply shelf for students thanks to Classroom Central.”
If you want to learn more about the group’s new venture, check out this story.
