North Learning Community Area Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh addressed the audience at Thursday’s forum.

Davidson residents crowded Town Hall Thursday evening for what was billed as
“direct dialogue” with officials from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. The forum addressed several issues, including concerns about low teacher morale at Davidson Elementary, a timetable for relieving overcrowded schools, the unlikelihood of an elementary-level foreign language initiative anytime soon, and plans for a new program to allow more flexibility at elementary schools with proven success – such as Davidson Elementary.

Thursday’s forum, focusing on elementary school issues, was the first of two in Davidson this spring. Another form Thursday, April 3, will address middle and high school matters. The event was hosted by Davidson Mayor John Woods, who welcomed attendees and said he hoped the event would prove the first of many such gatherings in the future.”We here in Davidson, we like to talk, and we care about our kids and we care about our schools,” the mayor said.

CMS was represented by its specialists in facilities management and student placement, and also by several members of the staff for the CMS North Learning Community, led by Area Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh. The North Learning Community includes 16 schools in Davidson, Cornelius and Huntersville, and was created last spring to encourage decentralization.

“I invite you to visit with us,” said Dr. Lory Morrow, executive director of the North Learning Community, which has an office at 16630 Northcross Drive (across the street from the Bob Evans restaurant at Exit 25).

The forums in Davidson and other area towns are part of a strategy to improve communication between CMS staff and the community.

“We want to prevent misunderstandings and misgivings,” Mr. Hattabaugh told a standing-room-only audience of teachers, parents and town residents.

LOW TEACHER MORALE

Students at Davidson Elementary School came home Thursday afternoon with a letter from the Parent-Teacher Association, titled “Required Reading,” outlining concerns they hoped would be addressed at the forum. The concerns included “the results of CMS’ own 2006-2007 teacher survey (which) suggest that morale among DES staff is dismally low.”

Several parents asked Mr. Hattabaugh about that survey and how the district plans to address it.

“It’s impossible to have a school of excellence with low teacher morale,” one audience member noted.

Mr. Hattabaugh responded that some, but not all, of the survey will soon be made public. He cautioned against ignoring the context of teacher concerns, suggesting that an increase in curriculum constraints and assessment requirements may have impacted how teachers feel about their jobs.

“To make comparisons with past years is difficult to do,” he said. “We’re in a difficult time with all the heat that’s being put on school leadership.”

Mr. Hattabaugh stressed that teachers need to talk to their principal and assistant principals about their concerns. PTA Board Member Connie Wessner then suggested that Mr. Hattabaugh himself, and the North Learning Center staff, facilitate meetings between teachers and administrators “after seeing a drop like that.”

WHEN CAN WE SHED THE TRAILERS?

Another concern in the PTA letter was that a “collection of mobile trailers sits at the bottom of the campus, reflecting unprecedented enrollment growth and the strains that accompany it.” While teachers are able to conduct classes in the trailers, the PTA letter added that “it is troubling to see so many students housed in makeshift quarters.”

Mobiles and overcrowding were the subject of several audience questions during the forum.

Mike Raible, facilities director for CMS, said the district generally seeks to open a new school to relieve an existing building that has at least 20 trailers on its campus. Davidson Elementary currently has 12 trailers.

“We don’t like to have mobile classrooms, but we don’t want to open empty schools,” Raible said.

The 2007 school bond, which voters overwhelmingly approved, allowed the district to acquire property in south Davidson for building a new elementary school at some point in the future. The property is located across from Bradford Park on N.C. 73. It is ranked No. 7 among elementary school construction priorities for CMS, which means it could be funded in a successful 2009 school bond vote.

Mr. Raible said the 2007 bond will help CMS drop down to its goal of 900 mobile classrooms by 2010, but he added that future bonds will have to be approved to keep that number from ballooning once again.

The population constraints prevent the district from being able to build smaller schools.

Mr. Raible said magnet schools, like the Davidson IB Middle School, generally do not have mobile classrooms because the district can control the school population there. Davidson IB currently has only about 250 students, or 80 per grade. Scott McCully, director of student placement, said the January magnet lottery resulted in a waiting list of 177 names for the Davidson IB.

“That’s pretty phenomenal,” Mr. McCully added.

“Is there any hope for small neighborhood schools?” one parent asked, stressing the success of Davidson IB.

But the CMS officials responded that the district has no choice but to build schools that open with 39 classrooms. The district currently needs to open 34 more elementary schools at that size just to keep up with growth projections. To open smaller schools would require even more properties and costs.

“There is a point where you can’t support that,” Mr. Hattabaugh said.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ON HOLD

Davidson Elementary parents have expressed an interest in being included in a CMS pilot program to offer foreign language instruction at the K-5 level, but Mr. Hattabaugh made it clear at the beginning of Thursday’s forum that such a program has been put indefinitely on hold due to budget constraints.

“It was our intent to move ahead with introducing foreign languages in the elementaries,” he said. “But this turned out to be a very expensive project and this is an austere year.”

The question session at the end of the forum repeatedly returned to this issue, with parents voicing their desire to find a way to offer foreign languages to elementary school students.

“If Dr. Gorman were standing here, he’d be appreciative of your comments,” Mr. Hattabaugh said, referring to CMS Superintendent Peter Gorman. “His heart is with you. But then there’s the reality of resources.”

The CMS goals for 2010 initially included expanding foreign-language instruction into all schools, with phasing-in to start in August 2008.

In Dr. Gorman’s introduction to his “100 Day Plan,” released in February, he wrote that, “We will also expand the teaching of foreign languages into every school and broaden it beyond the classroom with the use of innovative community partnerships. Research shows us that the study of another language leads to higher scores on standardized tests in reading and math, and improves scores on the SAT.”

However, such plans were dropped within a month. On March 12, the Charlotte Observer reported that the $13 million price tag for extending foreign language instruction into elementary schools caused the program to fall to the budget ax.

Audience members asked Thursday whether the PTA could try to raise money for foreign language instruction at Davidson Elementary, but Mr. Hattabaugh pointed out that the school is part of a larger district.

“We have to be concerned about equity,” he said, explaining that it would not be fair if affluent parents simply bought services for their own schools that the district could not offer elsewhere. “We’re not ready to roll this out yet.”

What about foreign language clubs? Mr. Hattabaugh responded that clubs might be an option.

New initiative for “freedom and flexibility”

Several audience members reacted with surprise to Mr. Hattabaugh’s opening remarks alluding to the likely inclusion of Davidson Elementary in a new district-wide program to promote flexibility in high-performing schools. PTA members and other parents indicated that they were unaware of the initiative.

Mr. Hattabaugh explained that the school board sought over a year ago to offer move flexibility to principals at high-achieving schools. In fact, empowering schools “with more freedom and flexibility” to challenge students and encourage leadership is Goal 5 (among 7) in the most recent CMS strategic plan.

“I look at Davidson as a trailblazer,” Mr. Hattabaugh said. “This can mean changes with science and social studies and how it is integrated.”

He told the audience that schools which have high pass rates on reading and math assessments and whose principals are skilled at tracking budgets and safety records and other administrative tasks will qualify for the new designation. According to the CMS strategic plan such a designation could mean teacher collaboration for new kinds of academic programs and the ability to try innovative ways to enrich the curriculum.

“Because of what’s going on at Davidson Elementary, I feel 100-percent confident that Davidson will be a ‘freedom and flexibility with accountability’ school,” Mr. Hattabaugh said.

He expects the district to unveil the initiative in May.

A BASKETBALL GAME IN EVERY CLASSROOM

Though some of the exchanges at the forum were heated, particularly over teacher morale and foreign-language instruction, there was also some levity.

Mr. Hattabaugh joked that he had thought Davidson was a place for serious instruction and high standards, until a staff member touring the school Friday reported 16 classrooms, to say nothing of the big screen in the library, all tuned to the basketball game between Davidson College and Gonzaga.

Mayor Woods sought to tie that in with the “freedom and flexibility” initiative.

“I want to get credit for the fact that the kids got to watch the ballgame – I think that shows great flexibility!” he said.

Comments Disabled To "Forum addresses morale, crowding, curriculum"

#1 Comment By Connie Wessner On March 29, 2008 @ 8:24 am