CMS closings: Dollars and sense?

While I was vacationing last week, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools posted a more detailed account of the costs and savings projected from the big school shakeup. I've been trying to make sense of it, with help from CMS planner Dennis LaCaria.

It's not the easiest chart to read, but you'll notice that the biggest projected savings come from "personnel," with no specifics offered. LaCaria said the proposal does not involve cutting classroom teachers. The assumption is that if a certain number of students move from, say, Spaugh Middle, which would be closed, to new preK-8 schools at nearby elementaries, the teaching positions would move to those new schools.

The job cuts -- an estimated 60 to 80 if the school board approves all proposed changes next week -- come from principals and assistants, school librarians, counselors, secretaries, custodians, cafeteria workers and others that would become redundant when schools close or merge. The biggest personnel savings, a little over $1 million, is listed at Harding High, a westside magnet that was added to the closing list just last week. The plan calls for moving the IB magnet to Waddell and the math/science magnet to Berry. Plenty of support staff would apparently disappear.

According to the finance plan, moving Smith Language Academy, a K-8 magnet, into Harding's newly renovated campus would cost more than $900,000. That's for installing smaller toilets and other facilities, LaCaria said. He disputed rumors that the switch would require hauling trailers to Harding; the three-story school includes enough first-floor classrooms to house the youngest children, as required by law.

If the plan goes through, Smith's middle-schoolers would inherit the state-of-the-art science labs that opened as part of Harding's $19 million in renovations last year. Berry's labs aren't quite as current, but the school offers "very good instructional space," LaCaria said.

Other points that require some explanation:

Busing costs are not yet calculated for several of the plans. That's because district officials will have to figure out bell schedules and other details, LaCaria said. He said the current assumption is that this year's controversial "shuttle stop" plan for some magnets will remain in force.

Two of the plans -- turning Winding Springs Elementary into a neighborhood school and making Cochrane Middle cover grades 6-12 -- will actually cost CMS more. LaCaria said the Winding Springs plan avoids the eventual cost of building a new school to relieve crowded Hornets Nest Elementary. And he said shifting some students from Garinger High to Cochrane will be a break-even plan in about five years.

The plan to turn Irwin Avenue Elementary into CMS office space includes an unexplained "miscellaneous" savings of almost $236,000 linked to moving people from the uptown Education Center to Irwin. LaCaria says that's because CMS would move other staff out of leased space and into the newly-vacant Ed Center offices.

And finally, it's still hard to say how many students would see major changes under this plan. CMS's tally includes everyone in any school on the list. For instance, a proposal to move about 50 students from Community House to South Charlotte Middle is listed as affecting about 2,400 kids, the combined enrollment of the two schools. Using that method, almost 28,000 students would see some kind of change in programs or enrollment.

About 21,000 more attend schools slated for "targeted assistance" to improve academics, image or student mobility. With a budget of $0 -- that's right: zip -- for 21 schools, it's hard to imagine that's going to be a huge deal.

So ... some of you have a jump start on me. What are you thinking and asking as you crunch the numbers?