Inclusive public schools where all Charlotte-Mecklenburg children reach their potential
Assignment
March 24, 2020 Darius and Vera Swann were looking for a racially integrated school in a time of mandated segregation. They wanted, expected, a good education for their son James. Their efforts on his behalf in 1964 placed them in the crosshairs of United States history and upended Charlotte’s trajectory as a New South city. Read More …
July 30, 2016 Excerpt from a subsection headlined “The public interest” in a commentary headlined “Big issues calling: Schools may be about to close, but difficult challenges lie ahead needing focus, attention” first published in Educate!, June 5, 2003. But perhaps the biggest question mark hanging over the schools is whether adults from all walks Read More …
June 9, 2016; first published in Educate! Jan. 14, 2001 Lawyer Parks Helms isn’t known for defying courts. So it may have given some folks pause when, in his State of the County address Jan. 9, Helms said that Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s pupil assignment solution “must not be one that is forced upon us by a court.” Read More …
May 12, 2016 The morning’s Policy Committee meeting was a slog through the details of how CMS assigns students. With a consultant on how to revise student assignment identified but not yet under contract, much of the discussion was about what must wait for discussion with the consultant. But Supt. Ann Clark, partiicipating by phone, Read More …
April 14, 2016; Agenda handout In a couple of weeks there will clearly be much more said about this subject, but today Supt. Ann Clark announced at a CMS Board Policy Committee meeting that she would clarify later this month how the bond issue she wants on the ballot in November is key to finding Read More …
April 13, 2016 Supt. Ann Clark presented a staff-written set of guiding principles Tuesday night. The Observer’s Ann Doss Helms wrote about the presentation here (cached here). The early website version is here. The tape of the section of Tuesday’s meeting that deals with the guiding principles is below. Following the video is the five pages Read More …
April 2, 2016 The lawyers gather today in Chapel Hill today to mark the 45th anniversary of Swann v Board of Education. That case, which went to the U.S. Supreme Court and profoundly shaped modern Mecklenburg County, is a milestone on the path toward righting the wrongs of Jim Crow that denied many children their Read More …
Dec. 10, 2015 Meeting materials here Listen in as Policy Committee chair Tom Tate tries to summarize a discussion of goals for student assignment that members had offered at today’s committee meeting: The four “goals,” as the policy committee left them Thursday: Reduce high-poverty concentrations in schools. Do no harm or minimize harm. Don’t assign children Read More …
Nov. 12, 2015 In the video of this meeting is a striking exchange, just a little over 3 minutes long, that goes to the heart of the fears and anxieties gripping portions of the public as the CMS Board of Education wrestles with how it assigns children to school. The prime speakers are, first, District Read More …
Nov. 7, 2015 Matt Ellenwood talked about the Obama adminstration’s guidance letter on how race, socioeconomics and other factors could be used as factors in student assignment. Tom Tate talked about how school board members want more people talking about the decisions ahead on student assignment and a new superintendent. And Roslyn Micklelson laid out Read More …