Some teachers concerned about security at Olympic High

Olympic High School has lost its security guards this year, sparking some concern among teachers about safety at the school.

Every middle and high school in the district is assigned a school resource officer. Schools often are also assigned some of the district's 110 "security associates," who aren't sworn officers but are in charge of protecting the campus.

I asked Randy Hagler, head of the CMS Police Department, about the change in security guard staffing at Olympic. He acknowledged that two security guards had been moved out of Olympic High but said it's because the school already has many more administrators than is normal. Because the high school is technically a community of five schools, it has five principals and five deans of students that can help out if a situation arises.

I've also heard from a few people close to the school who asked not to be named to protect employment. They said the moves have put the responsibility on teachers to handle violence that arises.

Olympic isn't a particularly violent school. Of its five schools, only one of them had a violent crime rate that exceeded the district and state averages. The other four fell significantly below.

But that doesn't mean incidents don't happen.

Earlier this month, a teacher at Olympic sustained a serious injury while breaking up a fight that occurred on campus.

According to police reports, Paul Hamilton was punched in the face while intervening in a mid-day altercation between what appears to be a student and someone who was not enrolled there (the aggressor was charged with trespassing as well as assault). Details on what specifically transpired are scarce in the report.

Hamilton was treated in the emergency room and released.

Olympic's support squad keeps growing

Almost six weeks before the kids report back to school,  dozens of business people,  faith leaders and educators gathered at a southwest Charlotte church Thursday to plot strategy for Olympic High and its eight feeder schools.

I've been hearing about Olympic's partnerships for several years,  since the school split into five smaller schools with career-focused themes in 2006.  Almost everyone talks about collaboration,  but this effort has grown into something that's making a tangible difference for a growing number of students.

Rucker-Shivers in 2013

I've written about how Olympic leaders have worked with nearby businesses to develop internships and apprenticeships to prepare students for high-paying jobs.  It was fun to see 2013 graduate Maceo Rucker-Shivers,  whom I interviewed as a high school student and intern,  at Thursday's event as a CPCC student and Bosch Rexroth apprentice.

Those efforts continue to pay off and expand.  In August,  Olympic's new advanced manufacturing school opens,  supported by an $80,000 grant from the German machine-parts company.  So does Pallisades Park Elementary, a new neighborhood school that will get the youngest children focused on the math,  science and technology themes that can carry through to graduation.

Realon

Mike Realon,  Olympic's career development coordinator,  has been leading seven years of summits like the latest one at Central Steele Creek Presbyterian Church. Last year he and his band of partners expanded the effort to include area elementary and middle schools.  They patterned their  "Alignment Southwest Charlotte"  effort and its  "cradle-to-career" theme on similar efforts in Nashville,  he said.  First-year results ranged from reading buddies in elementary schools to donations for teacher grants that helped start a robotics program at Southwest Middle School.

Realon likes to talk about  "finding the happy space,"  where school needs and the interests of businesses and faith partners intersect.  Dozens gathered around tables to talk about needs ranging from literacy tutors at Berewick Elementary to Hispanic family engagement at Southwest to male mentors at Olympic.

That kind of partnership network,  which links elementary,  middle and high schools and gets a community deeply invested in its schools,  is something Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools hopes to cultivate across the district.  LaTarzja Henry,  the assistant superintendent in charge of partnerships, said the Southwest Charlotte group is a success story but not necessarily a model that can be replicated for every area.  The needs and resources are different in,  say,  the Governors Village schools in the UNCC area or the McClintock Middle/East Meck zone,  which she cited as other areas leading the way.

The key is finding the right people,  inside and outside of schools,  to locate those happy spaces.

The school name game: Keep it simple

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has plenty of serious plans for the coming school year,  but I couldn't help noticing the district is also engaging in the time-honored tradition of spiffing up school names.

I was updating my spreadsheets for 2014-15 when I came across the names of the reorganized Olympic High schools:
   *Olympic Biotechnology, Health and Public Administration.
   *Olympic School of Executive Leadership and Entrepreneurial Development.
   *Olympic School of Technology, Entrepreneurship and Advanced Manufacturing.
   *Olympic Math,  Engineering, Technology and Science (the school predates the trendy STEM acronym).
   *And even the once-simple Olympic Renaissance has become Olympic Renaissance School of Arts and Technology.

Olympic students

Whew! Thirty-five words to name a school the size about the size of Mallard Creek High.

If I were queen of the world, I'd limit school names to one or two descriptive words,  plus the clearest possible label  (such as elementary,  middle or high school,  though I realize the proliferation of mixed-level schools complicates that).  I'd remind everyone involved that a name is not a syllabus,  a mission statement or a marketing slogan.  It should be simple and clear enough to define a community and stand the test of time.

Yes, I'm being crotchety about something that's an annoyance when I'm trying to get names right on deadline and make stories fit limited space.  But there's a serious point here, too.

If you're a newcomer moving into the Olympic zone,  what would you make of the list above?  There are three schools of technology and one of biotechnology,  one that offers entrepreneurship and another offering entrepreneurial development,  and nothing about literature or writing or history,  which I'm certain all the schools teach.  Would this entice or confuse you?  (Whether the five-school structure itself is a help or hindrance is a question for another day.)

Long-timers know it's a challenge to keep up with what schools are called from one year to the next.  Cynics suspect that adding trendy twists to names can be a substitute for real action.  Newcomers may struggle to figure out that Irwin Academic Center is an elementary school magnet,  that iMeck Academy is the high school portion of Cochrane Collegiate Academy,  and that terms such as "Collegiate" and "University" (in Harding University High) simply reflect a college-prep aspiration shared by all district schools.

I don't blame CMS for trying to keep up with a changing world and a competitive market.  Flexibility and innovation are great.  I'm just not sure it works to cram too much into school names.

If nothing else,  I can be grateful for the new Palisades Park Elementary School,  which resisted the temptation to put  "STEM"  into its name.