Town makes peace with CMS on charters, leaving only two on low-priority building list

In a unanimous vote, the Matthews Board of Commissioners agreed not to pursue municipal charter schools in a move to mend fences with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

In return, the school board will vote Tuesday on whether to remove Matthews from its low-priority list for school construction.

The town’s resolution, which states Matthews “has no intention of pursuing the development of a municipal charter school system any time in the foreseeable future,” is an effort to ease tensions between the suburb and CMS that have built up around the issue of overcrowding in schools.

Those disputes came to a head when the legislature in May 2018 passed House Bill 514, which allows some of Mecklenburg County’s suburban towns to create municipal charter schools. Unlike typical charters, those schools are able to limit seats to residents and can be funded by municipal tax dollars. In response, the CMS board passed the Municipal Concerns Act, which deprioritized the towns that signed on to HB514 for capital funding and school construction.

Matthews Mayor John Higdon, who embraced working with CMS during his election campaign in the fall, said that he saw the relationship between CMS and the suburbs deteriorate over discussions of installing more mobile classrooms to manage crowding.

“I don’t think either CMS or the town of Matthews is blameless for bad communication,” Higdon said. “I’ve spoken to most everyone on this board and the CMS board... I think it’s the desire of everyone to move on and establish a good working relationship.”

The school board is expected to vote Tuesday on an amendment to the Municipal Concerns Act, which would remove Matthews from the lower-priority construction list. Board chair Elyse Dashew, who attended Monday’s meeting in Matthews, said she was encouraged by the steps taken to mend relations between the town and CMS.

“CMS families have told us loud and clear that they want us to work together to meet the needs of our kids,” Dashew said. “Yes, we have some big infrastructure challenges. The funding of building our schools has not kept up, but the only way we’re going to address that is for the grownups to work together.”

If the amendment to the Municipal Concerns Act passes Tuesday, only Huntersville and Mint Hill would remain on the lower-priority list. Cornelius was removed from the act in October after it conducted an educational options study that concluded working with CMS would be the best path forward.

Pineville and Davidson never signed on to HB514, while Mint Hill did not actively pursue joining on to the legislation — it was represented in the state House by Bill Brawley, who sponsored the law and lost his reelection race in 2018. Dashew said she had not yet met with newly elected Mint Hill officials, and that she was aware of stronger energy for municipal charters in Huntersville from families and elected officials.

“There’s more work to be done there,” she said. “There’s some more relationship building to do on both sides.”

Like Cornelius, Huntersville also conducted an educational options study after it signed on to HB514. While the Cornelius study did not make recommendations on next steps, the Huntersville study suggested that northern Mecklenburg County form its own school district, though it acknowledged that it would likely face opposition from CMS and an uphill battle in the state legislature. It also recommended pursuing municipal charters until a separate district could be formed.

This story was originally published February 11, 2020 at 7:25 AM.