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Dilworth Elementary would become a neighborhood school, First Ward Elementary would become an arts magnet and Harding and Myers Park high schools would lose none of their magnet students if the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board adopts new staff plans.
The proposals, posted today, will be discussed at Tuesday's board meeting, starting at 6 p.m. at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center.
The elementary-school changes, designed to relieve crowding at Eastover, create a new Dilworth neighborhood school that combines the current First Ward zone with parts of the Eastover and Selwyn zones. The resulting school would have about 450 students and a 28 percent poverty level.
First Ward, now a neighborhood school with a magnet program that's being phased out, would host the arts magnet that's at Dilworth.
Eastover, which has 589 students this year, would shrink to 438 next year, with a 26 percent poverty level. Selwyn would go from 772 to 703, with a poverty level of 19 percent.
After months of heated debate over ways to bolster enrollment at East Mecklenburg High when a new high school opens next year, the staff plan pulls no students from other schools. It calls for creating a “STEM program,” specializing in science, technology, engineering and math, at East Meck. But that program would not be a magnet.
Previous proposals had called for moving International Baccalaureate magnet students in from Myers Park or math/science magnet students from Harding. Both drew outcry from those schools.
