Wake schools seek $8.8 million bump

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata pitched a budget seeking an $8.8 million increase in county spending for 2012-13, a much smaller hike than CMS'  Hugh Hattabaugh is expected to present next week.

The plan presented to the Wake school board Tuesday calls for $323.2 million from the county (read the full Wake budget proposal here).  Hattabaugh's preliminary plan,  presented Feb. 28,  would ask Mecklenburg commissioners for $355.8 million, $27.5 million more than CMS got this year.  Hattabaugh will make his formal recommendation next Tuesday.

Tata is seeking a 1 percent raise for teachers and a $500 bonus for other staff,  while Hattabaugh is talking about 3 percent across-the-board raises.

Wake is the state's largest district, with more than 146,000 K-12 students this year.  It expects to top 150,000 next year.  CMS  has about 138,000 K-12 students,  plus about 3,000 prekindergarteners, and expects to add about 2,000 in 2012-13.

According to the CMS presentation, it would have taken even more to cover rising costs, enrollment growth and some new spending,  but the district found just over $16 million in "reductions and redirections" that freed up county money.   The largest chunk of that,  $3.9 million,  came from adjusting the average salaries used for the 2012-13 budget to match current reality.

That item raised some questions,  especially given the buzz that CMS has been trying to replace expensive veteran educators with younger,  cheaper ones.  Hattabaugh, the interim superintendent, and Chief Financial Officer Sheila Shirley said the downward trend does indicate lower-paid faculty are replacing some higher-paid ones (though it doesn't prove that's being done intentionally).  Shirley notes that the reduction comes to less than half a percent of the CMS payroll,  and that she's heard the state averages are trending down as well.

The most controversial salaries,  those for top administrators,  will likely take shape after the board approves a budget plan in April.  Six years ago,  Peter Gorman inherited a 2006-07 budget done by an interim leader. During that year he added several highly-paid administrative posts.  The current board plans to pick a new superintendent in May;  we'll see what happens when the newcomer takes office.

Ellis-Stewart taking part in Obama visit

Ericka Ellis-Stewart, recently elected to chair the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board, will get a chance to meet President Obama when he visits Charlotte tomorrow.

Details weren't immediately available;  Ellis-Stewart is in Raleigh this afternoon meeting with a legislative education committee.  But the district confirmed that the reason a special meeting on the superintendent search was announced for Wednesday morning,  then postponed,  was that the chair was invited to be part of the visit.

The president is scheduled to fly into the Charlotte airport and make a quick visit to the Freightliner truck plant in nearby Mount Holly.

CMS teachers can seek iPad grants

Teachers who want help moving into next year's wireless learning environment can apply for grants to get an  "innovation kit"  that includes an iPad for the teacher,  up to 10 for students and various accessories,  including  "an iTunes app voucher,"   according to a memo Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools sent to employees today.

The  "Innovation for Transformation"  grants are part of the push to get all schools using wireless devices for learning in 2012-13.  School administrators have already gotten iPads,  and many teachers have been asking whether they'll get devices supplied by CMS.  I'm trying to track down how much money CMS plans to spend on the classroom grants and where it's coming from.

"In order for the learning environments of today to effectively meet the needs of the 21st century digital learner, a transformation must occur,"  the CMS memo states, promising "a transformational journey filled with innovative professional development, digital resources, and effective student engagement."

I got a glimpse of what CMS'  "bring your own technology" environment might look like when I visited the private Providence Day School for an upcoming story.  Josh Cannon, a 26-year-old chemistry teacher,  welcomes smart phones and other devices in his class.  When he did a demonstration that sent flames shooting out of a five-gallon water keg,  one student shot photos on his iPhone.  When Cannon talked about needing a dry day to do some outdoor explosions, half a dozen students whipped out their phones to check the forecast.  When students broke up to do individual work,  one used his phone as a calculator while working on a laptop.  Several popped in ear buds so they could listen to music while reading.  Students say they use their phones to keep up with when assignments are due,  which they track on Google calendars.

Also on the tech front,  Saturday's National College Fair will use bar codes to save students and families some paperwork.  CMS reports that students can fill in their information once,  then get a code that each college booth can scan,  saving the time of repeatedly writing down personal information. Read more about the fair here.

Latest twists in teacher ratings

Teacher effectiveness ratings seem to be slow-tracked in Charlotte,  but Nashville is about to become the third large district to release ratings for individual teachers.  The Tennessean reports that each teacher's evaluation on a five-point scale will be made public this summer,  following the lead of media-initiated releases in Los Angeles and New York City (read one New Yorker's account of being labeled a bad teacher here.)

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has set aside the new tests and value-added ratings that created so much controversy last spring.  Local teachers continue to study the best ways to gauge effectiveness,  but the state's Race to the Top program is now taking the lead on evaluations based on student data. Students around the state will pilot a new survey this spring that could eventually be part of that standard, along with test-score gains.

In January, North Carolina released aggregate job-evaluation results for principals in each district and teachers at each school.  Chief Academic Officer Rebecca Garland said last week there are no plans to post evaluation results for individuals.  When and how the new evaluations might be linked to pay remains unclear.

Meanwhile,  CMS interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh and school board Chairman Ericka Ellis-Stewart are scheduled to update the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee about local performance-pay and teacher evaluation efforts on Tuesday.

Officials from Project LIFT, the philanthropic school-reform group working with CMS, are also on the agenda.  LIFT is looking at some kind of performance pay or bonuses in its nine schools for 2013-14. For the coming year,  top teachers in those schools are being offered retention bonuses based on job evaluations and test-score gains if they'll commit to staying through 2012-13.

Buying into Montessori

The latest magnet lottery results have revived perennial questions about the popular Montessori schools, which work differently from most elementary magnets in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

If parents wait until their children are approaching kindergarten to apply for Park Road, Chantilly or Highland Mill Montessori schools, they're probably too late.  Students admitted as prekindergarteners have guaranteed kindergarten spots, which means there aren't many seats left for newcomers.

The Montessori schools are the only magnets that accept 4-year-olds, and their pre-K classrooms are the only place in CMS where Mecklenburg students pay tuition.  Diane McClure emailed to ask whether that effectively bars low-income families from those schools:  "It also has the appearance of paying to get into the magnet school."

Magnet director Jeff Linker says pre-K students are chosen by random lottery.  If they're selected, he said, income-based scholarships are available.  He also noted that the tuition of $3,000 a year for 10 months of full-day prekindergarten is well below the market rate.

Poverty levels are relatively low at the Montessori schools, from 12 percent at Park Road to 35 percent at Highland Mill.  If nothing else, pre-K admissions favor families who know the system and are prepared to seize the opportunity.


Continuing the Montessori theme,  the 2012-13 results show that CMS' recently-launched middle school Montessori magnet at Sedgefield is growing,  from 57 students placed in the 2011 lottery to 82 students this time around.  CMS created the magnet based on parent requests,  but there were concerns about whether families would actually pursue the option.  The goal is 100 to 120 students, Linker said.

McElrath: Teachers should speak Spanish

Schools that serve large numbers of Spanish-speaking students should have Spanish-speaking teachers,   Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board member Richard McElrath said this week.

His comments came Tuesday night, after teachers talked about their efforts to craft ways to evaluate and encourage better work.  One group studied "hard to staff" schools, and Sue Varga, a Quail Hollow Middle School teacher on temporary assignment with the CMS talent effectiveness project,  said one thing that can make a school challenging is when many students haven't mastered English.

"We shouldn't have schools where most teachers don't speak the language of many of the students,"  said McElrath,  a former teacher.  He insisted that teachers are not effective if they can't speak their students' language.

Interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh said CMS students come from homes where many languages are spoken, not just Spanish. He said teachers use a technique designed to communicate with all of them without having to speak their languages:  "The concept here is we're teaching children English."

McElrath said Thursday that he still believes students deserve to be taught by a teacher who speaks their language,  but he has not made a proposal for CMS to require or recruit such teachers.

View the discussion here, in the Feb. 28 video.

CMS pondering $1 million teacher verdict

How will Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools respond to last week's jury award of $1.1 million to a former teacher?  Don't expect immediate answers, CMS general counsel George Battle III said Wednesday.

In a closed meeting late Tuesday night,  Battle briefed the school board on the Jeffrey Leardini case.  In a federal civil suit,  Leardini testified he was coerced to resign immediately after students at Community House Middle accused him of improperly touching them.  Had he not been misled by a CMS employee relations specialist,  he and his lawyers argued, he'd have had a chance to preserve a successful teaching career.  The jury agreed, siding with Leardini on all counts.

Options could include seeking a new trial or appealing to the Fourth Circuit Court, Battle said.  The district has 28 days to file post-trial motions,  he said,  and a decision about appeals would come after the judge rules on motions.

Whatever CMS ends up paying won't come out of money for classrooms,  Battle and interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh said.  The district has insurance to cover some awards, and also keeps an emergency reserve fund.