PreK-8s, Bright Beginnings top CMS research plan

Measuring the impact of Bright Beginnings prekindergarten and figuring out whether the recent switch to preK-8 schools benefits students are among top research goals for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Chief Accountability Officer Frank Barnes told the school board Tuesday.

Barnes

Several board members said they're eager to see that data.

The 2010 decision to close three struggling middle schools and add grades 6-8 to eight elementaries raised questions in the affected neighborhoods.  Some parents still believe the combined elementary/middle schools endanger the young children and give older students fewer academic options than they'd get in larger middle schools.  Proponents say students benefit from the more personalized setting and avoid the academic slump that often comes with the switch to middle school.

In September,  Morrison presented a preliminary study of the first year of pre-K-8s that found mixed academic results. Barnes said Tuesday a follow-up is expected in late fall or winter,  after results of 2013 state exams are in.

Barnes said CMS is also working with researchers from UNC Charlotte to study the district's prekindergarten:  "Is it working, where is it working best and are there challenges?"  Most school board members say they support public prekindergarten,  but many have voiced frustration that CMS failed to deliver on early promises to monitor how Bright Beginnings students do as they move through school.  Former Superintendent Eric Smith created the program in 1998.  Tracking of student results vanished during ensuing leadership changes,  even as the program's cost has risen.

Other research plans include identifying signs that students are at risk of dropping out and studying the "instructional culture" of CMS schools, part of a research project with TNTP.  Barnes said CMS hopes to refine the district's annual surveys of principals,  teachers,  students and parents.  Results of those surveys used to be posted online;  Barnes said the 2012-13 results haven't been released yet but should be posted later this summer.

Barnes told the board that he and his staff are still working on a reliable way to report on school success.  In 2012,  CMS withdrew its school progress reports after the Observer uncovered errors in the data.  A subsequent CMS review found even more problems.

Board member Ericka Ellis-Stewart asked Barnes how he plans to restore community confidence that CMS can get the numbers right.  Barnes said he's working on a system that uses data verified by the state,  but new state exams and uncertainties about a proposed letter-grade system are delaying that effort.

"Part of what I recognize is that trust is earned,"  Barnes said.  "I think what we will have to do is season by season,  year by year re-earn that trust."

Give preK-8 schools a checkup?

To really get a feel for how things are going at Charlotte-Mecklenburg's new preK-8 schools,  a panel of volunteers should be sent in to do a checkup,  says Dr.  Becka Tait.

Tait  --  a pediatrician,  CMS parent and member of the League of Women Voters Education Committee  --  told the school board it should revive its Equity Committee to get beyond the data at these eight new schools,  which will play a crucial role in getting kids from impoverished neighborhoods ready for high school.  (Read more about the preK-8 schools in Sunday's Observer.)

"It's time to ask those students 'How are you doing?' " Tait said. Volunteers could flesh out staff reports,  she said.

Equity  --  the concept of making sure all schools get what they need to educate their students  --  may be the biggest question looming for the new school board and the superintendent they hire this spring.  There are sharp differences in the community about how to define and execute equity,  and the current board will have to hash out its own approach.

The Equity Committee illustrates the challenges.  In 2002,  as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools was moving from court-ordered desegregation to a neighborhood-based student assignment plan,  the school board created the panel to monitor and report on progress.  Over the years,  the committee did some interesting research that included extensive school visits and data-crunching.  But there were always questions about what the board expected and what it would do with the mandatory annual reports.

By 2009,  when an election brought in five new members,  the committee's existence was controversial.  Some in the community and on the board viewed it as a holdover from the battle over busing.  Others thought it was an essential voice for schools and communities that might be overlooked.  There were rifts,  sometimes rancorous ones,  among committee members who represented different views.  The then-new board voted to end the requirement for Equity Committee reports,  and the committee stopped meeting in spring of 2010.

Now there's a new board majority.  The revival of the committee is probably not the top issue on anyone's agenda.  But the bigger questions of equity  --  how it's defined, what it means for schools across Mecklenburg County and how the community is engaged  -- loom large. 

No after-practice bus rides for preK-8 student-athletes

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools officials this morning clarified a point they made last week about transportation at the eight new preK-8 campuses: student athletes at those schools will get bus rides to the middle schools where they will play sports, but they won't get transportation back to their home school. The new preK-8 schools won't have athletics on their own campuses, but parents at the new schools made it clear they want their middle schoolers to have the same sports opportunities as kids at "regular" middle schools. So CMS has paired the preK-8 schools with "regular" middle schools for athletics, allowing middle schoolers from the new campuses to participate in sports at their paired schools.

At last week's press briefing, transportation director Carol Stamper pointed out that the district will give preK-8 athletes bus rides to their paired middle school for tryouts, practices and games, but CMS won't give them bus rides back to their home campus. (A handout CMS provided reporters at the meeting said transportation back to the home schools would be provided, but CMS officials today say that was in error).

The paired schools look like this:

Ashley Park and Bruns Avenue -- Sedgefield
Berryhill and Reid Park -- Kennedy
Druid Hills and Byers -- Eastway
Thomasboro and Westerly Hills -- Coulwood