Project LIFT teachers: Absent more than students

Teachers in Project LIFT schools averaged 9.9 absences last year  --  a higher rate than the student average of 9.1 absences.

That was one of the most shocking bits of data in the first-year report on the $55 million five-year project  presented at Tuesday's board meeting.  But you won't find it in the presentation posted online,  and you didn't hear it discussed if you watched the meeting.  Instead,  you might have caught a quick reference to a paper handout distributed to board members.

I got a copy from Denise Watts, the Project LIFT Zone superintendent, after the meeting. It contains the actual data that's available so far to measure the results of the first year.  Many of the items are blank,  to be completed when 2013 test results are released or new parent surveys are completed.

The 71 percent graduation rate at West Charlotte High exceeded the 2013 goal of 66 percent.  This year's target is 78 percent.  And last year's students overwhelmingly topped the goal to earn a total of 100 recovered credits  (essentially makeup courses, often taken online).  They earned 301.

But teacher absences at the nine LIFT schools came in well above the 2012-13 target, which was to average six missed days per teacher.  Apparently based on last year's reality,  the 2013-14 goal has been bumped up to 7.9.  For students,  the goal is to bring the average down to 8.1 days this year.

Another bleak spot:  Students in the nine schools, which include the elementary and middle schools that feed into West Charlotte,  averaged 1.7 out-of-school suspension days per student.  That would equate to 170 per 100 students, using the calculation for  N.C. school report cards. That's similar to the rate reported for West Charlotte High in 2011-12  (176 per 100) and well above the rates reported that year for the  schools with younger students.  This year's goal is to bring the zone average down to one suspension per student.  (That doesn't mean each student gets suspended;  some students earn multiple suspensions and run up the total.)

Stealth segregation?

At recent forums on student assignment, several black high school students complained of being reassigned from the racially diverse Hopewell High to the virtually all-black West Charlotte. They and their families saw it as a sign that Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools leaders are actively working to segregate schools, a concern picked up by school board members Richard McElrath and Joyce Waddell.


McElrath, a retired teacher who was running for school board when the boundary decisions were made last year, noted that his family lives in the area being switched. No one he knows was told about the possible school swap, he says.


The lingering angst over 2010-11 high school boundaries illustrates some of the challenges in student assignment.


A look at the 2009 boundary map is enough to spark head-scratching in a reasonable person. West Charlotte's zone jutted up toward the north suburbs. That's because the northeastern Vance High got way too big several years ago. CMS carved off part of the Vance zone and reassigned it to West Charlotte.


Meanwhile, the zone for Hopewell High in Huntersville had a "foot" that practically stepped on West Charlotte.


That's how West Charlotte got sucked into the boundary shuffle sparked by a new high school opening in Cornelius, some 17 miles to the north. When CMS officials launched boundary talks in March 2009, with automated phone calls to families, media coverage and contacts with PTSAs and town officials, they made it clear West Charlotte was in the mix.


Yet somehow the news of changing boundaries slipped by a number of people until it was too late. It wasn't just the area moving from Hopewell to West Charlotte that got bushwhacked. Many who live farther north -- including former North Mecklenburg Principal Jimmy Poole, a respected and knowledgeable voice in the area -- were shocked to realize belatedly that the board had voted in June 2009 to draw lines that will dramatically boost the poverty level and eliminate the white majority at North Meck starting this August.


Communication is one challenge. I can attest that CMS publicized the boundary options and held public meetings. I remember writing articles and being surprised that there wasn't more outcry from up north.


But there's a difference between hearing about abstract changes and realizing how those changes will affect your child or your school. As CMS goes through the current round of highly-publicized student assignment talks, complete with multiple public forums, I'm willing to bet there will still be folks showing up in the fall to protest specific changes, saying they had no warning.


Drawing lines is an even bigger challenge. The new high-school boundary map looks more logical. The new Hough High carves off the northern portion of the county, and will open with a mostly white and middle-class student body. West Charlotte has a more compact zone; it's expected to remain mostly black and mostly poor. Students in that northern "jut" that moved from Vance to West Charlotte a few years ago will now go to North Meck (which will serve a strip of north/northeast Charlotte). The kids moving from Hopewell to West Charlotte will be at a school closer to home.


So is everyone happy? Not a chance. As board member Joe White likes to say, "schools close to home" are only desirable if you like the school close to your home. And as members weigh their commitments to nearby schools, diversity and equity, they're going to find a lot of collisions.