Stay or go? Parents debate what’s next as controversial south Charlotte plan approved
The south Charlotte boundaries vote is one of the most anticipated of 2023. Join The Charlotte Observer’s Anna Maria Della Costa and CMS board members Summer Nunn and Lisa Cline at noon on Wednesday for live-streamed conversation about the south Charlotte boundaries vote.
Some parents staged their last hurrah Tuesday night.
Many were left figuring out where to go from here.
But for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, the 7-2 approval of Superintendent Crystal Hill’s new south county boundary and reassignment plan paves the way for the district to fix overcrowding at a trio of existing high schools in south Charlotte.
It’s also the roadmap to populate a new high school opening in 2024-25 at 12218 North Community House Road and a planned new middle school set to open 2025-26. The middle school doesn’t yet have an address.
“It’s not where they go to school but how they go to school,” said Lenora Shipp, who made the motion to approve Hill’s plan. “What happens when they get there? It is our task to educate every child well, no matter where they go.”
Dozens of parents spoke out on Hill’s plan during the public comment portion of the board’s regular board meeting — many against what was approved.
While board members thanked Hill and CMS officials for their time — the process began in early 2022 — and work on the plan that impacts an area with 42,000 families, unhappy parents told The Charlotte Observer they will now have to consider other options for their children’s schooling.
“This vote is about prioritizing what is the right thing to do for students,” said Ellen Yingling, mom to three CMS students. “Our human students; not numbers, not widgets, but growing, developing humans.”
A logical decision
Yingling is part of a small group of families whose students are currently in the Sharon Elementary to Alexander Graham Middle to Myers Park High feeder pattern.
Hill’s recommendation released May 15 shifted the feeder pattern to send those students to South Mecklenburg High, shocking parents who say this feeder pattern wasn’t mentioned in prior drafts.
Alexander Graham and Myers Park share a campus, and about 70 parents and students formed a human chain last week along a sidewalk from the carpool exit of the middle school to Myers Park High to prove the point.
On Tuesday, board member Jennifer De La Jara offered an amendment to prevent students from looking out from their middle school at a high school they won’t attend. Her amendment would’ve sent neighborhoods straight from Sharon Elementary to Carmel Middle School and on to South Mecklenburg High.
The motion failed, leaving Yingling and others defeated. Many parents walked out of the meeting after the amended motion failed.
“Now they want to move this tiny group of students for no logical reason and in a very illogical way because they want to make some numbers work,” Yingling said before the meeting. “We must ensure they are getting not only a quality education but also one that focuses on prioritizing their mental health and regards them as more than just numbers and pawns. It pains me to the core to have to think that way.”
Considering private school
A group of persistent parents from the Polo Ridge Elementary community walked away from Tuesday night’s meeting furious.
Board members kept a portion of Hill’s plan that sends students from Polo Ridge to both the new relief middle and high schools. Right now, the majority of Polo Ridge Elementary families go to Jay. M. Robinson Middle and then to Ardrey Kell.
The board also didn’t consider a proposal drafted by a group of parents from Polo Ridge, Hawk Ridge and Rea Farms schools that call themselves CMS Parents United. They say the parent-created south Charlotte reassignment proposal avoids assigning any family to two new schools.
“We have already discussed moving if the vote is not in our favor,” Frank Santoro, a parent in the Polo Ridge community, said before the vote. “We live in a home that was a larger sacrifice for our family than we wanted but it was purchased because of the schools. I did not intend to have any more changes in the schools my kids go to because of issues like losing established friendships and having to reestablish themselves in a new school with a different culture and community.”
Santoro says he’ll now consider private school options — a decision he says will be easier if increased funding for private school vouchers passes the state legislature. Those vouchers will make it so any family, regardless of its income, would qualify to apply for vouchers to attend a K-12 private school.
“If my kids are going to have to do this anyway, they might as well do this at an established school with an established record,” Santoro said of his children being forced to attend two new schools. “Once again, two new schools is too much.”
Natalya Kosyanenko agrees. Her family also lives within the Polo Ridge feeder pattern that will change. She calls her option of potentially moving an “undesirable outcome.”
“We are taking it one step at a time,” Kosyanenko said. “We’ll develop the next steps. We are going to keep trying to get our voice heard. (If we have to move,) of course it’s going to hit us financially and affect our future plans, so it’s not the easiest decision to make, and would be very disruptive.”
Votes against a $2.5 billion bond referendum?
Susan Rodriguez-McDowell, the Mecklenburg County commissioner who represents District 6, in an email offered advice to concerned parents telling them their response to change will “go a long way in shaping your child’s response.”
During the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday night, Rodriguez-McDowell also voted to approve a county budget that fully funds the school board’s requested operating budget increase of $38.9 million and a $2.5 billion school bond that will be on the ballot this November. The school board’s three at-large seats will also be on the ballot.
She says some parents pledged to vote against the school bond if they didn’t get their preferred outcome in the reassignment plan. Don’t punish children that way, Rodriguez-McDowell said.
“Our students and our educators deserve nothing but the best learning environments,” Rodriguez-McDowell said in the email. “By blocking the bonds, your intention may be to send a message to the school board, but the effect will be devastating for our community.”
What’s best for children
For parents like Yingling, the vote Tuesday was about watching CMS leaders and ensuring they’re setting an example for students.
“As elected officials, their job is not to rubber stamp a plan because it was put on their desk and told it was the best they could do,” Yingling said. “Rather their job is to ensure that they listen to constituents, make necessary adjustments and approve a plan that is wholly logical and that makes smart, strategic sense.”
Yingling told the Observer she believes in public education and the diversity it provides. But she also must do what is best for her children, be it public or private.
“We must ensure they are getting not only a quality education but also one that focuses on prioritizing their mental health and regards them as more than just numbers and pawns,” Yingling said.
This story was originally published June 6, 2023 at 11:30 PM.
