Time to shake up CMS board?

Woo hoo! After nine years covering the cyclical news of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, I just encountered something new: The quest to draw new lines for school-board electoral districts.

With 2010 Census data landing in April, the board has to even out the population of its voting districts. The northern District 1, a sprawling zone that was clearly drawn before the suburban boom, now has about 30 percent more residents than the central District 4, CMS planner Mike Raible told the board Tuesday.

But this also poses an opportunity for the board to make bigger decisions, including whether it's time to revise the six district, three at-large makeup of the board, Raible said. They'll also face such thorny questions as how much emphasis to put on drawing districts that promote minority representation and whether to draw lines that give political parties "safe" districts (read the staff presentation, which includes a map of the current districts,  here).

The board plans to start making decisions in March. Any changes would take effect after this year's election for three at-large members.

In their preliminary discussion Tuesday night, members disagreed on pretty much everything.

Kaye McGarry, citing the recommendations of a 2005 CMS reform task force created by business and political leaders, suggested cutting the board to seven members, all elected at-large.

"I would guess that Dr. Gorman wouldn't mind having to deal with less members," she said.

Superintendent Peter Gorman grinned: "Can I pick the seven?"

Rhonda Lennon countered that she remembered the time, prior to 1995, when all members were elected at large. "It was all one giant district and everyone lived on Providence Road," she said. "I would never support that."

Lennon talked about keeping Huntersville, Cornelius and Davidson in one district. Joyce Waddell, Richard McElrath and Tom Tate talked about protecting or enhancing minority representation on the board (currently, the only two African American members come from the two "minority majority" districts, though blacks have won at-large seats in the past). Tate added that ideally, CMS might adopt a "pie slice" approach to ensure that all districts include high- and low-poverty schools.

Members swapped opinions on whether to do the work themselves, appoint an advisory group, hire a consultant or ask CMS staff to provide recommendations. They disagreed over the importance of keeping school-board voting districts the same as those for county commissioner (political junkies, add "co-terminus districts" to your vocabulary).

Trent Merchant called county commissioners' redistricting advisory board "disingenuous at best and a sham at worst" and lectured his colleagues on the need to avoid wasting time. "This is the least important thing that we have on our plate right now," he said.

Given the budget cuts, layoffs and school closings that are lurking, he's probably right. But political boundaries certainly make for fine political theater (watch the discussion here; the redistricting talk starts at the 2:33 mark of the Feb. 22 video).

And when all the rhetoric clears, this board's choices will shape decision-making about public education for years to come.