http://66.225.205.104/SO20091204.mp3
Less than three percent of International Baccalaureate students at Myers Park High School will be going to East Mecklenburg High next year. That's according to a survey by parent organizers at Myers Park. WFAE's Simone Orendain has details. The Myers Park IB Parent Advisory Council continues to push for a reversal of a recent school board decision that sends about 385 IB students from their school to East Meck or Harding University High. The Myers Park IB program draws kids mainly from the southern half of the county. The move is one of the board's solutions to fill an anticipated enrollment gap at East Meck, when a new high school opens in Mint Hill next year. IB Parent Council President Kim Lanphear says a number of Myers Park students who live south are concerned about long commutes. "They are not going to go to East Meck, not because they hate East Meck, not because they don't think the program's good. But because it doesn't make sense from where they are, to make that journey," she says. East Meck is expected to lose more than 600 students next year. The parents' survey results show 12 students from Myers Park IB plan to transfer to East Meck. School board vice chair Kaye McGarry has placed an item on the agenda for Tuesday to rescind the Myers Park IB change. New board members will be sworn in at that meeting and so far two of them have said they would support the reversal. It needs five votes to pass.