Here are the CMS schools that grew the most

It's been kind of hard to tear attention away from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Heath Morrison's sudden departure this week (Here's the latest, in case you're not up to speed).

But students are still in classrooms and issues that faced the district in September and October are still relevant now. One of those is school overcrowding and enrollment growth. You'll recall that this issue reared its head just a few weeks ago when CMS put out its early projections for the 20th day of school. The district said it had thousands more students than it expected to have. The district as a whole grew by about 2,500.

I was able to dig up school-by-school data to find out where the growth in CMS occurred. I compared the official 20th day numbers the district posted recently with the first principal's monthly report from the last school year.

Here are the five schools that had the largest increase in students by percentage, and the five schools that lost the most. I chose percentage because the schools that had the largest increases in number of students all tended to be high schools (since they have more students in general).

Largest increases:

1) Garinger High, up 365 students, or 26%
2) Allenbrook Elementary, up 77 students, or 16%
3) Dilworth Elementary, up 89 students, or 15%
4) Sterling Elementary, up 78 students, or 13%
5) Sedgefield Middle, up 84 students, or 13%

Garinger grew significantly after the board voted in February to send most traditional high school students at the Cochrane Collegiate Academy to Garinger to create the iMeck magnet program. Allenbrook Elementary is in west Charlotte, and Sterling Elementary is at the intersection of South Boulevard and I-485.

Largest decreases:

1) Winget Park Elementary, down 535 students, or 54 percent.
2) Cochrane Collegiate Academy, down 275 students, or 28 percent.
3) Hawthorne High, down 43 students, or 24 percent.
4) Cato Middle College High, down 40 students, or 20 percent.
5) Berewick Elementary, down 102 students, or 15 percent

Palisades Park Elementary opened this fall in the Steele Creek area to relieve the overcrowded Winget Park. For the explanation on Cochrane, see above. Hawthorne High transitioned from being an alternative high school to a medical career magnet.

Here's the full spreadsheet.

Overall, 90 schools grew, and four were new. You'll notice that Olympic High's schools are a little funky because they changed up some classifications.

Early CMS enrollment numbers leaves questions unanswered

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools released an early count this past week of how many students are enrolled in the district, and it seems to have raised more questions than it answers.

The district reported that it had 145,112 enrolled on its 20th day, which was last Monday. That's an unofficial figure until the state Department of Public Instruction compiles numbers from every North Carolina county and publishes them all. Generally, that's sometime in October.

CMS declined to give me a demographic breakdown of the student body. The N.C. charter school office said it couldn't provide any early enrollment numbers. That leaves a few key questions open for the next month.

1) Did charter school enrollment really come in below expectations? That certainly was the implication from CMS officials at the school board meeting Tuesday. Anecdotally, we've found that several of the 11 Charlotte-area did in fact come in below their projections. 

This will mark the second year that a significant number of new charters have opened up after the state legislature lifted the long-standing cap. The 20th day figures there will show whether they're catching on or struggling.

2) Will CMS grab a larger share of the county's students? Hand in hand with that, the official numbers will help show what the new charter schools will do to the CMS "market share." That refers to the percentage of students in the county attend the public school system as opposed to private schools or charters.

As of last year, CMS lagged behind several other major urban districts in North Carolina, according to figures published by Wake County business group Wake Education Partnership this past week.

About 79.1 percent of students in Mecklenburg County attended CMS, compared with 10.8 percent in private schools, 6 percent in charters and 4.1 percent home schools.

CMS had a smaller market share than the public school systems in Wake, Forsyth and Guilford counties, but exceeded that of Durham County.

That's below the goal the district set out for itself. Last year, CMS projected it would hold an 81 percent market share through 2021. That was a key provision of their capital need projections.

On the flip side, CMS has more students this year than those projections called for the district to have. They were counting on 144,209 in that plan.

3) Where are the new students? I'm also after a school-by-school enrollment breakdown that will show us where in the county the biggest jumps occurred. A number of readers have also asked me whether an influx of immigrants from Mexico and Central America is a part of the unexpectedly high enrollment numbers this year. Yes, Charlotte has hundreds of children coming to the city from those areas.

CMS does not verify the immigration status of children looking to enroll. Some groups will use the number of English as a Second Language students as a rough approximation of immigration. CMS would not provide a number of ESL students this year, deferring to the official report.

CMS projecting to have about 750 more students

It's T-minus 12 days until the start of school, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools leaders proclaimed at the school board meeting last night that they are ready.

They also presented a grab-bag of numbers and statistics regarding what they're expecting for the first day, and I thought I'd share them here.

More students coming. CMS is expecting to have 754 more students this year than it had at the 20th day of school last year. The vast majority is coming from high school students, which Deputy Superintendent Ann Clark attributed to keeping more students from dropping out and promoting more from 9th to 10th grade. Interestingly, they're projecting a decrease in enrollment in elementary school (albeit only by one student). They didn't address why this is, but my guess is it's because most charter schools target early grades.

More buses, too. CMS is projecting to add 27 buses to its fleet this year, bringing the total 1,020, even as the number of students they expect to ride them will fall a bit. The district says this is because of new academic programs at schools around the county.

Less out-of-school suspension. The district has made changes to the code of student conduct, and one emphasis is on keeping students in the school even when they're being disciplined.

Still looking for teachers. CMS has 421 teacher vacancies, though 266 of those already have a recommendation. Superintendent Heath Morrison said that having 155 teacher openings without recommendations is ahead of where the district was at this point last year. The largest number of vacancies, 59, are in elementary school.

PowerSchool should be ready. The portal parents use for updates should be functional this year after many malfunctions last year as CMS shifted to a new system.

Enrollment reports are stalled statewide

By now,  we'd normally know how many students Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and other districts have.  N.C. public schools take their official enrollment count on the 20th day of school,  which was Sept. 23.

But as of Thursday,  the 38th day of school,  nothing had been reported.  The principals' monthly report for September,  the formal document that contains the 20th day numbers, has been held up statewide because of problems with PowerSchool,  the data system for all public schools in North Carolina.

Superintendent Heath Morrison says CMS knows how many students it has and feels confident in the numbers.  On Monday,  staff said they could give me the unofficial enrollment count,  but that hasn't happened yet. Update:  Friday afternoon CMS released its total enrollment: 144,140 in K-12, an increase of about 3,000 over last year and about 300 more than projected. The district has not yet released demographics or school-by-school numbers.

Vanessa Jeter,  spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction,  said the state anticipates having the problem fixed this week,  which by now means today. But we've heard that from local officials for at least the last three weeks,  so I'm not holding my breath. Update: CMS now says they're expecting the PowerSchool problem to be resolved  "within the next two weeks."

Jeter says the delay in official reporting isn't holding up state money for schools. But Morrison said this week that it does create some snarls.  For instance,  he said,  until the state releases enrollment for charter schools,  CMS has to pass along county money based on the numbers in their applications.  In some cases that's off quite a bit.  Invest Collegiate,  for instance,  applied to open with 558 students,  hoping to lease the former Professional Development Center from CMS.  When that didn't happen,  the charter resorted to modular classrooms that could only hold about 100 students.

So stay tuned.  Surely we'll get the numbers sometime soon.

And if anyone missed Thursday's online chat about CMS and CPCC bonds,  you can read the questions and answers here.

For NC charters, call Florida firm

Charter schools are changing public education in ways large and small,  as I learned last week when I did some reporting for the annual enrollment story.

Normally we report numbers for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools,  and maybe check with Wake County for comparison.  But with six new charters opening in the Charlotte area this year and 11 more pending for 2014,  it seemed like time to start checking in on their enrollment trends,  too.

When I called the two largest,  Cabarrus Charter Academy in Concord and Langtree Charter Academy in Mooresville,  I was told I couldn't speak to the local principals.  (Another twist of charters is that county lines aren't particularly important;  charters in this area often draw from two or three counties.)  Both are operated by the Florida-based for-profit Charter Schools USA,  and I was directed to a PR company in Fort Myers that speaks for the chain.

Is all information about these N.C. public schools going to have to come through you,  I asked Colleen Reynolds, president of Edge Communications.

"Yes, all media goes through me,"  she replied. "Believe me. It’s much easier that way. I tell reporters that I act as a facilitator – not a gatekeeper. This way, if you need something, I’ll get it for you by your deadline. It’s similar to when you go to the district for district schools, you go to me for our charter schools. I will help you in any way that I can."

I feel like I ought to be chagrined.  But the thing is,  I had answers  (including a follow-up about waiting lists)  from Reynolds while I was still playing phone tag with local staff in three other charters.  Both Charter USA schools had applied to take 661 K-6 students this year.  Both filled.  Cabarrus Academy has 838 students on the wait list and Langtree has 664,  according to Reynolds.  (Overall,  three of the six new local charters fell short of the numbers in their applications.)

As for CMS,  when I left Friday I still had no information on the 20th-day tally taken Sept. 23.  Wake hadn't released anything, either.  The rocky rollout of the statewide PowerSchool data system is apparently creating a holdup. 

So stay tuned.  And if you're a family having first-hand experience with the growing number of charter start-ups,  let me know how it's going.