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Residents of Mint Hill will be out in force at Tuesday's school board meeting, hoping to persuade Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to draw high-school attendance boundaries that unite their town.
“Mint Hill is a very strong and vibrant community. We'd just like to keep the community together with one school,” Mayor Ted Biggers said Friday.
The vigorous opposition to CMS's proposal, which splits Mint Hill teens among Butler High, Independence High and a new school opening in 2010, is a reminder of how important schools can be to community identity. New boundaries almost always spark debate over winners and losers.
Tuesday will be no exception. The board is holding a public hearing and vote on boundaries for two high schools – one in Mint Hill and one in Cornelius – and two planned elementaries. The high schools, which are under construction, will open in 2010. The elementaries will likely be delayed by the county's construction-debt crunch.
The high school in Mint Hill has been the most controversial. Parents and officials from Mint Hill have followed the process closely, attending community meetings and offering suggestions to school planners.
In May, when CMS staff recommended a plan they didn't like, Mint Hill town officials voted for their own plan. District planners worked with them to craft the lines and crunch enrollment numbers for their alternative, but student placement director Scott McCully says he's sticking with the original plan.
CMS officials say they look at the county as a whole. While town boundaries can be one consideration, they're more interested in making sure new buildings are filled, crowded schools get relief and bus rides are reasonable.
“It's virtually impossible to come up with the perfect map,” Superintendent Peter Gorman says.
Some Mint Hill parents say the CMS plan sets the new school up for struggle, with poverty levels that can make it hard to attract families and teachers. The town plan has Butler High and the new school looking similar in demographics, with about one in three students qualifying for lunch aid.
Biggers says that ever since town officials helped CMS find land for the new high school, there's been an assumption that the Mint Hill school would serve all or most of Mint Hill. The town will provide police protection, he said, and it would be nice for residents and businesses to have one high school to rally behind.
Biggers said Friday he isn't surprised the CMS staff stuck with its plan, but he hopes to sway the school board. Ken Gjertsen, who represents the southern suburbs, says he prefers the town's plan to the district's.
Concerns have been muted in the north, compared to Mint Hill. The plan calls for the new Bailey Road high in Cornelius to serve Davidson, Cornelius and Huntersville, opening with one of the district's lowest high-school poverty levels.
North Mecklenburg High, which was the north suburban school for decades, would see its poverty rate nearly double, to 39 percent, as it loses its northern students and picks up a wedge of the West Charlotte High zone.
“I think this is the worst thing they could have done to North Meck,” says longtime North Meck parent activist Deb Allen, who says the aging building is poorly suited to serving students with extra needs. For instance, she said, teens from low-income families are less likely to have computers at home, and a 50-year-old building doesn't have the same technology as a new one.
“It's basically going to be a north Charlotte school,” says Huntersville Mayor Jill Swain, who has a son graduating from North Meck in 2010 and a daughter who will start there next year. “I take it as a personal loss. It just hurts.”
Swain says she thinks there's been little outcry because families who are in the new Bailey Road zone are happy with the plan. And she says she and two other northern Mecklenburg parents who know school planning tried to craft a plan that was better for North Meck.
“I can't do better,” she said.
Larry Gauvreau, the board member who represents north Meckelnburg, says the staff plan “wasn't perfect, but not so bad that it caused a full-scale rebellion.” But he notes there's one more group the board may hear from on Tuesday. Because Torrence Creek Elementary in Huntersville is desperately crowded, CMS officials in May proposed moving about 100 students to Barnette Elementary in August. That move, coming with little notice and no public discussion, is raising some hackles, he said.
