CMS school change details live

Here's the final tally: Highland Mills and Chantilly Montessori and Elizabeth and Myers Park Traditional, all elementary school magnets, were spared from closing. Mint Hill Middle and Ballantyne Elementary were pulled off the boundary-change list.
All other proposals remain active, but that does not mean they will be approved. Voting on 2011-12 plans is scheduled for Nov. 9.

4:50: Motion to pull DavidsonIB/Alexander off the list fails 4-3. Meeting over.

4:46: McGarry proposes no changes to Villa Heights location. Fails 4-3.

McGarry moves to halt consideration of merging Davidson IB into Alexander Middle.

4:45: Motion to take Waddell/Smith shuffle off the list fails 4-3. Voting to stop studying this: Waddell, McElrath, McGarry.

4:40: Motion to pull Torrence Creek off list for boundary change fails 4-3; the four say they don't know enough to vote yet.

Joyce Waddell moves to take Waddell High/Smith shuffle off the list.

4:38: Morgan and Davis: Don't vote on Torrence Creek today because Rhonda Lennon, who represents that district, isn't at this meeting.

4:35: Unanimous vote to take Mint Hill and Ballantyne off the list for boundary changes. McElrath moves to pull Torrence Creek Elementary as well.

4:30: Raible says recession has slowed development and enrollment surge at Ballantyne and Mint Hill; question is how quickly it recovers.

4:26: Morgan moves not to change boundaries at Mint Hill Middle and Ballantyne Elementary.

4:25: Myers Park and Elizabeth Traditional elementaries are spared; board votes 6-1 to preserve traditional magnet program. Only McGarry opposes.

4:22: Merchant: "We have some major problems that we need to solve in this district and they are not at Myers Park and Elizabeth Traditional. ... For God's sake, leave these people alone and let's go fix something that needs our attention."

Raible: There's no "vendetta" against these schools. "It was simply looking for opportunities."

4:14: Merchant moves to preserve Myers Park and Elizabeth Traditional magnets. He calls for continuing to look for a new location for Villa Heights magnet and exploring some kind of lab-school partnership with Queens. Suggests Oakhurst might be new location for VH gifted magnet. Merchant: I believe staff has "fundamental opposition" to traditional magnets, but "I don't care. It's working."

4:11 Montessori magnets get a reprieve: Board votes 4-3 to take the Highland Mill/Chantilly/Oakhurst plan off the table. Because two are absent, less than a majority of the nine-member board held sway. Voting to remove this: McGarry, Waddell, McElrath, Tate.

4:05: McGarry moves to take Chantilly/Highland Mill Montessori consolidation off the table. Discussion begins.

4:00: Officials outline a series of public meetings on these plans, starting this Thursday at Hopewell High and running through Oct. 25. Will post as soon as I get a link. Ditto for the PowerPoint they're working from today; I've been trying to get a link but right now just have it on paper.

3:56:  Harding expected to have about 1,600 students under new plan, about double current enrollment.

Tate: What would the language school at Waddell be called? Gorman: Board would have to decide.

McElrath: I go to football games and see players and cheerleaders all one race. "It would be nice if you would give diversity some kind of attention." No response.

3:45 Up now, one of the most dramatic shifts. Close perpetually underfilled Waddell High in southwest Charlotte and let Smith Language Academy, a K-8 magnet, have that building. Add neighborhood students to the westside Harding High, now a full magnet. Keep IB program at Harding but move math/science magnet to nearby Berry Academy of Technology.

Harding would pull students from current Waddell and West Meck zones. Waddell kids would go to West Meck, South Meck or Harding.

Joyce Waddell (yes, related to the Waddell the school is named for) says she can't support abolishing a high school that's done well with minority students and has a nationally recognized science program. McGarry says she's "on the fence."

Officials say the move would let Smith expand its Chinese language program.

3:37: Waddell: Plan to put students from low-performing middle schools into low-performing elementaries sounds a lot like what Gorman said he wasn't going to do. Gorman: We're "doubling down" that Strategic Staffing will pay off.
Merchant on new hybrid el/middle schools: "I like these. I think these are good ideas."

3:33: Tate worries that closing middle schools and creating new hybrid elementary/middle schools by 2011-12 is too complex to do so quickly. "We may be trying to do so much that we may not be able to do it as well as we should."
Some of the elementary schools that would expand are part of Strategic Staffing, a CMS program that assigns top principals to struggling schools and helps them recruit teams of high-performing teachers.

3:27 Board members ask if middle-schoolers in new preK-8 schools (which would be small and high-poverty) would have the same elective courses as peers in bigger schools. Not necessarly, Gorman says; no guarantee of "full buffet."
Raible says officials are excited about possible enhancement of science and foreign language for younger kids by virtue of having middle schools in the building. But Gorman is quick to say they're making no promises about that.

3:20: School board got a 56-page research report on academic achievement in K-8 schools, done by Johns Hopkins University researchers. I'll try to get a link to that in the near future.
Raible says no phase-in for new preK-8. That means this year's sixth- and seventh-graders will bounce back to what are now elementary schools for grades seven and eight next year. (Ouch -- that could be a tough sell for rising eighth-graders, especially if they're going back to their old schools!) Buildings will have to be modified for older grades and in some cases for 4-year-olds.

3:18: Gorman calls DIB building the worst in the district; "nothing compares to it." Board moves on to plan to close three low-performing, high-poverty middle schools and create new preK-8 schools to take their place.

3:15: Up now: Closing the popular and successful Davidson IB Middle and making the IB program part of underfilled Alexander Middle in Huntersville (Alexander was one of CMS's most crowded schools until a new school opened a couple of years ago). Officials say this means lots more kids can get into a great program, which could make up as much as half of Alexander's enrollment.

Proposed new IB magnet at Blythe Elementary would also feed into Alexander magnet.

McGarry says she opposes this plan because DIB is unique and successful.

3:10: Raible says Cochrane is doing well academically but underfilled: "This would allow Cochrane's success to continue for grades 9-12."

McGarry says safety is "the elephant in the room" in merging younger grades with high school. Unless CMS beefs up safety, she says, younger kids could be exposed to "selling drugs, assaulting teachers, sex and gangs."

3:05: What about sports? Cochrane high schoolers would play on Garinger teams.

Morgan: Will small neighborhood high school at Cochrane offer enough academic options for high performers? Current 6-12 schools are magnets with specialty programs that families choose. I didn't hear a clear answer to this.

3:01: Next up: Plan for turning Cochrane, an eastside middle school that's losing its science magnet, into a 6-12 school. It would pick up some students from Garinger High. Officials say kids benefit from easier transition to high school. Cochrane would get "targeted assistance for perception" (read: image boost).

2:58: Plan calls for closing University Park Elementary arts magnet and making First Ward a bigger arts magnet (First Ward just picked up arts magnet this year). Raible says benefit is better access to uptown arts/culture scene for UPark kids, plus avoids eventual need to renovate UPark building. First Ward would become a year-round school.

2:53: Next up: Close westside Pawtuckett Elementary, demolish building for future new school, put those kids into relatively new Whitewater Academy in northwest, which failed to fill when economy tanked. Little discussion on that.

2:50: Board members discuss whether they're making decisions without full info, especially about costs. Davis: "We're really not making decisions today." Waddell: "Yes we are." She and Tate says pulling schools out of the plan is a decision.

Montessori change continuing to get a lot of resistance; coincidence that that's the group packing the meeting room?

Davis: We've been at this almost two hours and we're less than halfway through. Moving on.

2:40: As questions and resistance about Montessori change continue, Gorman bristles a bit: "We're getting ourselves backed into a corner where we're going to take everything off the list." That's OK if it's what the board wants, he says, but he'll be back at budget time asking where they want to find the savings.

2:35: McGarry, a former Montessori parent, asks if Highland Mill school was built for Montessori program. Parents in audience pump fists and whisper "yes!"

"Instead of putting the million-dollar market uptown, just have the Montessori schools grow their own vegetables," McGarry says.

LaCaria notes Oakhurst would offer more seats than HM and Chantilly combined, thus more kids could get into Montessori.

This plan continues the new 7-8 Montessori magnet at Sedgefield Middle; question is whether merging elementaries would create more kids feeding into it.

2:30: McElrath touches on what's going to be a very tough question: If you merge three schools, such as Oakhurst/Chantilly/Highland Mills, who is new principal? Gorman: Not ready to start naming names yet (or next week -- personnel discussion will be more general).

2:25: Davis: Montessori/Paideia plan seems to be collisions of academic benefits vs. cost savings.
Tate: What about transportation to new Montessori at Oakhurst? Placement director Scott McCully says kids wouldl have to be bused from very large area.
Gorman mentions desire for more magnets in north Meck; loud applause. But Gorman says there isn't space to do that now.
McGarry arrives; it's up to seven of nine members.

2:20 Raible says closing Highland Mill and Chantilly Montessori magnets and consolidating them into new preK-6 Montessori magnet at Oakhurst is about saving money. He acknowledges Montessori programs rely heavily on contact with outside world and have invested in gardens and grounds.
Oakhurst Paideia magnet disappears under this plan. Tate says it doesn't make sense to change either Montessori or Paideia; says smaller schools can be better for Montessori.

2:12 Davis agrees there are "too many unknowns" to end a successful traditional program. No formal decision, but this one looks like it's going down.
On to Montessori, with groups of parents in T-shirts listening eagerly.

2:10: Merchant on ending the highly successful MP Trad: "I think that's crazy. I will never, ever, ever vote for that. ... I have all faith in our team, but they can't stop time. We don't have time to do all this." Explore partnership with Queens for a later time.

Tate: What happens to Villa Hts building? Gorman: Not ready to say.
Tate: What's cost of vacant buildings. Gorman: We're working on that, will present it.

2:05: Interesting if votes are taken today: Only six of nine members are present: Davis, Tate, Tim Morgan, Waddell, McElrath, Merchant. Absent: Kaye McGarry, Joe White, Rhonda Lennon.

2 p.m. Students at Myers Park and Elizabeth Traditional would get guaranteed seats at Myers Park lab school when traditional magnet disappears, Raible says. He says this program would provide what MPTS parents have said is most important about their school. Lab school also helps Queens train better teachers, which could boost all CMS schools, he says. (University lab schools are used for universities to do teacher education and research on teaching.)

Students at the tiny Villa Heights magnet for gifted kids would move to Elizabeth Elementary, with space for more kids. Additional seats for families seeking the talent development magnet would be available at new Mallard Creek Elementary program.

Tate, Merchant and Joyce Waddell all say they oppose plan to eliminate traditional magnets and move Villa Hts magnet. Richard McElrath says anything that makes magnet kids return to neighborhood schools can be good for those neighborhood schools.



1:55 p.m. New plan for Myers Park Traditional Elementary: It becomes a year-round laboratory school with Queens University. Board members are looking at Wake County year-round schedules to get a feel for how that works.
"Multi-track," which puzzled some board members and parents, has to do with kids having their vacations at different times. Because some kids are off at all times, schools can hold more kids. (Challenge for families: What if kids in different schools have different vacations?)

1:50 p.m. New as part of plan to close Irwin Avenue Elementary: Blythe and Mallard Creek elementaries get new magnet programs: IB at Blythe, talent development (gifted) at Mallard Creek. Both would be partial magnets. Not totally clear how this connects to Irwin Avenue uptown.
Kids in IB magnet at Irwin would get guaranteed seats in IB magnets in their transportation zones. Neighborhood kids at Irwin would go to Dilworth or Bruns.
Irwin building would house administrative offices, with historic status recognized.

1:45 p.m. Raible notes the Davis plan would mean K-12 kids riding buses together. Murmurs from audience.
Tate asks whether Gorman would pursue options that turn out to be more costly. Gorman says only if it's a short-term expense for long-range saving, but there will be uncertainties. "It's very uncertain what we can crystal-ball."
Gorman clarifies cost estimates will come next week but not necessarily Monday.

1:40 Board member Trent Merchant says public is still unclear: "Why are you doing all this?" Should make it clearer what's driving each proposal -- in this case, crowding at Hornets Nest. Audience applauds when Merchants says clarity would help with "buy-in."
Gorman says buy-in will be tough in some cases: "Nobody wants to see their home school go away or their magnet school go away." Some magnets recommended for changes "are good schools that are doing good things," but district is in a money pinch.

1:35 p.m. Gorman acknowledges some kids and families will be hurt by changes: "When we close a school or change a school, it's not always a better option for a particular family. We have to be up front about that."
He says proposals are driven by academics but also cost.

1:30 p.m.  Discussion: Leadership magnet at WS would mesh well with military/leadership magnet at Davis, which is currently in an underfilled, recently-removated building serving grades 6-12.
Question arises about 5-year-olds and teens at same school. "We're talking about a global leadership magnet, for crying out loud," Raible says. "If we're not able to have those students on the same campus, then who?"

1:27 p.m. Turning Marie G. Davis into a K-12 magnet school would help kids by eliminating transitions to middle and high school, Raible says (academic performance often drops during such transitions). Winding Springs Elementary, now a global leadership magnet, would become a neighborhood school, picking up students from Hornets Nest Elementary.
Gorman says HN has about 900 students and is using 15 mobiles; another 900 kids from HN zone are in other CMS schools. "We do need another boundary created by Hornets Nest," he says.

1:20 p.m. Board member Tom Tate says it's going to be tough to decide about eliminating options today without cost estimates. Both he and Richard McElrath are skeptical about getting into boundaries when schools are successful and focus is supposed to be on improving academics.

1:15 p.m. Board members ask about adding mobile classrooms rather than redrawing boundaries to ease crowding. Gorman and planner Dennis LaCaria say moving mobiles is expensive and new boundaries could provide longer-term solutions (still no specifics on which schools would pick up turf, but officials say it's pretty obvious what's adjacent).

1:10 p.m. Latest list of overcrowded neighborhood schools that need new boundaries is down from last week's five to three. Highland Creek and Torrence Creek elementaries and Community House Middle remain. Ballantyne Elementary and Mint Hill Middle have been removed, but planner Mike Raible says "they were removed inadvertently and really should be on the list."

1 p.m. Parents from Chantilly and Highland Mill Montessori magnet schools are packing this afternoon's meeting, where Superintendent Peter Gorman and his staff are poised to explain to Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board members how proposed closings and other changes can improve academics and/or save money in 2011-12. Meetings at the CMS Leadership Academy, a little-known building on the Governors Village campus, seldom draw an audience, but interest is high.

Gorman says today's session won't cover costs or impact on personnel; those details are expected Monday.

At the end of today's meeting, the board may decide to eliminate some of the proposals presented last week, Gorman and board Chair Eric Davis say. The session is scheduled to last until about 5 p.m.