For more than a year, and under three different superintendents, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has been trying to strike the right balance with boundaries for a new high school that will ease crowding at three of North Carolina’s biggest schools.
On Monday, Interim Superintendent Crystal Hill released her recommendation for a plan that now also includes a new south middle school. It will change boundaries and/or feeder patterns at four high schools, nine middle schools and 14 elementary schools. And it incorporates feedback from hundreds of families who have weighed in with concerns about the distance between homes and schools, concentrations of affluence and poverty and whether school buildings are underfilled or overcrowded.
The school board will continue to take comments on the latest plan, and will hold a public hearing on May 23 (details here). The board is scheduled to vote June 6 on a plan that takes effect when the new high school opens in 2024, with the middle school expected to follow in 2025.
Relief for huge schools
The high school is currently being built on Community House Road. It was part of the 2017 school bond package, and the school is designed to pull students from Ardrey Kell, Myers Park and South Mecklenburg high schools. Those three are currently among the state’s largest.
Under the current plan all three would shrink by hundreds of students, falling well below 3,000. The new (and so far unnamed) school would open with just under 2,200 students. Providence High, which was not part of the early boundary plans, would grow slightly.
The new middle school is part of a $3 billion bond request CMS is making to county commissioners to put before voters in a November referendum. County officials have indicated they’ll likely reduce that amount, but CMS still hopes to have money to start construction on a middle school that would open in August 2025.
The new boundaries would significantly reduce enrollment at Community House Middle School, which CMS planner Dennis LaCaria says is the largest middle school in several states. It would fall from about 1,400 students to fewer than 1,100. Eight other middle schools would also see changes.
Seeking economic diversity
The board’s student assignment policy also calls for trying to create socioeconomic diversity, based on a complex rating system that labels each Census block based on such factors as family income, adult educational attainment and home ownership.
CMS planning officials say creating that diversity can be difficult in the county’s southern tip, where most neighborhoods rank as high socioeconomic status. Ardrey Kell High, for instance, currently has only 1% of students from low socioeconomic status neighborhoods, while Providence has less than 1%. Neither would see major change under the new plan.
South Meck is currently the most diverse school in the mix, and a draft presented earlier this spring would have increased poverty there. That brought an outcry from people who said a less diverse, higher-poverty school would undermine South Meck’s academic and cultural strengths. The latest plan increases the percentage of high socioeconomic status students at South Meck.
Early versions of the middle school plans also raised concerns about high poverty levels at Quail Hollow and Carmel middle schools. The latest plan attempts to create more balance.
How close to home?
CMS policy also calls for assigning students to schools close to home, making wise use of school capacity and, as much as possible, keeping feeder patterns intact so students who attend elementary or middle school together can move up to the next level together.
Families criticized earlier versions on all of those counts. Some noted that a relatively small increase in travel mileage can translate to a lot more drive time in south Charlotte rush-hour traffic. The district has presented charts on minimum, maximum and mean mileage under various plans, but parents say that doesn’t necessarily reflect the reality of their circumstances.
The 53-page presentation on Hill’s recommendation also includes details on options for students who are reassigned in the middle of their high school experience and on magnet programs affected by the changes.
In a news release Monday, CMS said Hill will also present a recommended magnet program change for Eastway Middle School, but that isn’t part of the south schools report.
