Neighborhood Schools In Charlotte -- 10 Years Later

Critics of the move to neighborhood schools in Wake County warn it could lead to high-poverty, segregated schools.

Some say all the school board needs to do is look down the road to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools for an equity debate. Ten years ago, the school system ended busing and moved to what the Wake County School Board is now considering: neighborhood schools.

"The schools re-segregated almost overnight," Shamrock Gardens Elementary PTA president Pam Grundy explained. "That's why we have tremendous crowding in the suburbs and empty schools in the inner city."

Grundy says Shamrock Gardens is just one example of the effects the assignment policy has had on schools.

"Shamrock was one of those schools that were basically abandoned by the middle class," Grundy said. "So you ended up with a school that had a couple of fairly well-off neighborhoods assigned to it that was 95 percent kids of poverty, kids of color."

She says Shamrock Gardens alone cost the system double what it spends on suburban students to help needy children learn in smaller classes with additional staff. However attracting and retaining educators for needy schools can cost between $15,000 and $20,000 more per teacher.

"It costs tremendously more, and the school system has not come up with an answer," former Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board member Louise Woods said.

Current school board members say strategic staffing is one answer helping a few schools, like Devonshire Elementary.

A star principal along with several teachers took on the struggling school for three years and received substantial bonuses for results. It costs more but the results may be worth every penny.

"The achievement gap in some places has closed nine to 10 points," school board Chairman Eric Davis said. "Particularly our minority and economically disadvantaged students made the most gains."

Yet Charlotte's graduation rate is below the state average.

Economic Segregation

A high-poverty school is defined as having 61 percent or more students receiving free and reduced lunches.

During the 2002-2003 school year, Charlotte went from 39 to 49 high-poverty schools just a year after the move to neighborhood schools. Wake County, using income levels to diversify schools, had just four high-poverty schools that year.

Now empty city schools in Charlotte --with mainly minority students -- will be shuttered or consolidated to cut costs. The school board voted to close 10 schools, which sparked a racial outcry.

"They're doing it to black community," Charlotte NAACP President Kojo Nantambu said outside a November 2010 school board meeting. "They're doing it to poor and minorities and they don't care."

Grundy added, "By having a divided system like this, it's tearing our community apart."

In the nearly 10 years since Charlotte-Mecklenburg went to neighborhood schools, the number of high-poverty schools jumped from 49 up to 83. That's just about half of the 177 schools district wide.

Wake County -- still balancing enrollments by family income levels last year -- had only 25 schools of the 163 considered high-poverty.

Lessons Learned

Now the Office of Civil Rights is investigating Charlotte's school closings. And in Wake County, it is looking into the change in assignment policy.

Wake County School Board member Chris Malone, who supports the move to neighborhood schools, insists Raleigh’s plan is different from Charlotte’s 10 years ago.

"We're not Charlotte; we've never purported to be Charlotte," Malone said. "Yes we're similar in size, and they went somewhere down the road we're going down now, and I agree with that. But we don't have a choice model.  We're going to go to community schools; we're going to go to zones."

Malone says the student assignment committee will continue moving in the direction of a zone-based plan. However the Wake County School Board voted down its first zone plan.

Malone admits it may take another election and picking up one or two seats to continue moving to a community-schools zone plan.

Current Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board member Joyce Waddell says Wake County’s school board needs online to look at Charlotte to see the effects of community schools.

"You've voted to dismantle integrated schools, and that’s what you need to focus on," Waddell said.

Echoing Waddell’s sentiments, Woods warns the Wake County School Board to put more value in its currently lauded assignment policy.

"You have created a system that is the envy of people across the nation," Woods said. "Keep the tenets of that while you look at what changes need to be made."