CMS magnet update: Town hall meetings set, school changes revised

Monday will bring a first round of town hall meetings for people who want to learn more about Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ plans to boost school diversity using choice and socioeconomic status.

And if this week is any indication, the presentation at those meetings could bring surprises. CMS gave the public its first glimpse of a detailed plan at Tuesday night’s school board meeting. Less than 48 hours later, the district had made significant changes to the list of schools where magnet seats will be added in the next four years, reducing the total from about 13,000 to 11,000.

Spokeswoman Renee McCoy said the biggest changes came when CMS revised the list to reflect only new seats at existing magnet schools, such as Marie G. Davis military/leadership academy, which will split up and change themes, and language immersion schools, which will change locations.

The first town hall meetings will be from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Monday at North Mecklenburg High, 11201 Old Statesville Road, Huntersville, and at South Mecklenburg High, 8900 Park Road. Another round will be take place during the same hours on Nov. 7 at East Mecklenburg High, 6800 Monroe Road, and West Mecklenburg High, 7400 Tuckaseegee Road.

The new magnet plan, which has been in the works for more than a year, creates new socioeconomic status ratings for each school and student. Those levels, known as high, medium and low SES, will be used to set priorities in the 2017 school options lottery, which determines which students get into the most popular magnets. The goal is breaking up the concentrations of disadvantage that characterize dozens of schools now.

The plan also changes transportation zones, provides a new path for students to transfer out of persistently low-performing schools and expands magnet options in the coming years. At Tuesday’s meeting, Clark and her staff said the list of schools adding magnet seats would be subject to change – and when the school board met with Mecklenburg county commissioners Thursday afternoon, that list had already been revised.

In addition to pulling out the count for existing seats, CMS reviewed the latest enrollment numbers to make smaller adjustments, McCoy said. The district also added a new school based on interest and available space, a process Clark said will continue as the plan evolves.

Thursday’s changes include:

▪ Rama Road Elementary, which was not on Tuesday’s list, will add a 250-seat magnet program in 2018, with the theme to be determined.

▪ Marie G. Davis military/leadership school, currently a K-12 magnet, will split and change in 2017. The high school JROTC/public service magnet moves to Hawthorne Academy; it will offer 400 seats, an increase of 250. Davis will become a K-8 International Baccalaureate school with 1,474 seats, an increase of 500 over the current K-8 enrollment.

▪ The number of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) magnet seats moving from Palisades Park Elementary to Winget Park Elementary in 2017 went from 225 to 300.

▪ The number of magnet seats to be added to Sedgefield Elementary in 2018 went from 175 to 400.

▪ The size of a magnet school slated to open in the old Wilson Middle School in 2018 went from 700 to 800. The theme is not determined.

▪ The two new language immersion magnet schools scheduled to open in the northern and southern parts of the county in 2019 will offer a total of 1,950 seats, with 900 of them new. The programs that are currently part of Waddell Language Academy will move to the south magnet.

▪ The number of IB/STEM magnet seats slated for Waddell High, which would convert from a K-8 language school in 2019, rose by hundreds, to 1,600 the first year and 2,400 eventually.

▪ The dual language immersion magnet school that will replace Collinswood Language Academy in 2019 will have 940 seats, an increase of 190.

▪ A 550-seat computer science magnet school, which had been listed as opening in 2017 in the Old Newell school, is now listed only as being in the UNC Charlotte area.

▪ The middle/high school Montessori magnet, which will move out of Sedgefield Middle School in 2017, is now listed as moving to the old J.T. Williams Middle School.

This story was originally published October 14, 2016 at 1:05 PM with the headline "CMS magnet update: Town hall meetings set, school changes revised."