Let me get this straight. Last semester at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, there were 22 kids caught with guns. That’s more in one semester than in all of the previous school year.
In addition, there were seven sexual assaults, 15 sexual offenses, 25 assaults on school personnel, five assaults with a weapon, four assaults resulting in serious injury, 157 incidents of possession with a weapon and two robberies with a dangerous weapon. There were also over 1,300 calls for service to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, the Rhinoceros Times reported.
So how many kids did they expel? 200? Nope. 100? No. 50? Again, no. Try two. Yes, two.
When Creative Loafing interviewed Superintendent Peter Gorman a few weeks ago about school violence statistics (See “Checking in with Peter Gorman” in the Feb. 28 issue), he didn’t have an explanation for why the system doesn’t appear to be punishing serious offenders. Some may be in jail and unable to return to school, he suggested, but couldn’t say how many.
He also didn’t know anything about the case of Christopher Fonseca, which the Web site crimeincharlotte.com initially reported in December. Fonseca was charged with bringing a weapon on educational property in April 2006. He was back in school in December, when he was arrested again for having a gun on school property. Gorman said he was unaware of the case.
This week, the school system announced it was finally cracking down hard — on teachers.
At the beginning of the year, the school system put 84 teachers at the system’s four lowest-performing high schools on “action plans” and told to improve their students’ test scores or face losing their jobs.
The system fired 21 of them and another 18 left on their own. I’m all for making teaching highly competitive by paying teachers according to the results they achieve and pushing those who don’t cut it out of the profession. But it is a slap in teachers’ faces to fire them when the kids they teach are allowed to assault them with impunity, spit in their faces (literally) and run buck wild.
It’s absurd to waste the public’s money to offer talented teachers an extra $15,000 and a 15 percent pay raise to baby-sit human debris that don’t belong in our school system, then blame these teachers when they quit or fail to raise test scores. It would be an outrage to force talented teachers into these schools if none move voluntarily until the administration cleans up this mess.
Take West Mecklenburg High School, for instance. What talented teacher would want to teach at a school where last semester eight kids were caught with guns, two school personnel were assaulted, there were three assaults resulting in serious injury, one assault with a weapon and two sexual offenses when in all likelihood the kids who committed those crimes are still in school?
Gorman’s timing on this is ironic. His plan for turning the school system around promised the exclusion and expulsion of CMS’ worst students “if necessary.” It also promised a four-tier system of alternative placement schools for these kids by January 2007 to get them out of the combat zone that is the classroom. The last time I checked, it was March, and this has yet to happen.
Gorman now says he’ll have these new schools up and running by August. But school board member Trent Merchant, who supplied CL with the violence numbers above in February, says the school board has yet to discuss any changes to the discipline system this year.
That’s incredible considering that a School Building Solutions Committee poll last year found that 70 percent of voters believe there is a lack of discipline in our schools. Those would be the same voters who sunk the school bond package last year in a show of no-confidence in CMS.
All of this puts teachers in the best bargaining position they’ve been in for years. As a group, perhaps lead by one or both of the system’s two teachers’ advocacy groups, they must refuse to transfer into these schools until Gorman and the school board alter their discipline policy to expel or permanently divert out of mainstream schools every kid who commits the violent acts named above. Teachers should also demand a hand in rewriting that discipline policy.
Teachers owe it to the good kids in our school system — and there are many — to take a stand. In a survey of the school system last year, only 26 percent of students at West Mecklenburg said they feel safe at school. The percentage of students who feel safe at the other three low-performing high schools stacks up like this: Garinger 28 percent, Waddell 53 percent and West Charlotte 52 percent.
Contrast that to suburban Butler High School, where 82 percent of students report they feel safe and ask yourself if this is fair to the students or the teachers at these schools.
School leaders must hold up their end of the bargain on school discipline, and there is unfortunately only one way that is going to happen. Teachers must embarrass them into it.
Teachers, tell them hell no, you won’t go until they clean up this mess.
This article appears in Mar 14-20, 2007.
my kids are long graduated, but go back to 1996. Charlotte test scores were on the bottom of the nationals. State legislatures did what they do best, passed new laws that were tied to performance bonuses for both individual teachers and administrators as well as funding for each school itself. I kept some of the documents that I acquired when..well..acquired.
The goals included raising test scores by percentages, reducing violence and absents by percentages, etc.Bottom line, the source of the problems still existed, but violence against teachers and staff went unreported so that the goals could be met and folks could get the money. I personally witnessed a middle school female vice principal receive multiple fists to her chest from a student in an attack. I was involved in legal defense of my daughter who had been attacked by a problem boy who’s other violence had also included multiple attacks on other students and even physically assaulting a female teacher. But when I finally stepped in to seek recourse, there had been no reports against that studen whatsover. The prinicpal was well aware of the problem student, but with a wink explained to me that there was no prior record. There was by the time I got done but only at threat of legal action against the indivual school staff and publicity via friends in the local media.
Our NC school system has corrupted itself ,covered up the problem for years . While the school administration has been denying, the local gang mentality has been recruiting.
WE’ve proven to our kids that they can committ violent acts against others and authority with no recourse. That’s about the only thing that is being taught today..oh that , and for the victims…you have no recourse as well..nice lessons eh.
they are kids with many social problems.[drugs lack of
fathers,jobs and peer pressure.I always suspected you were a neo-nazi,would you refer to white kids in the suburbs as rubbish? of course not.your diatribe revealed more of your character than those you were writing about.I believe you have a great deal of hatred in you against black people.By all means Tara, keep revealing yourself the real-self. charles patterson,playwrite&poet.
It is a sin and a shame for Mecklenburg County to have the serious issues in the public school system that it has.
For one, Mecklenburg County is one of the richest counties in the state but this county is too busy using the money to pay for arenas, stadiums, waterparks, etc. instead of investing in our children’s education.
Second, the reality is, is that some of these kids DO NOT want to learn and if they do not want to learn, then the school system should oblige them and get them out of the system if they continue to commit horrendous crimes against fellow classmates and adult teachers.
In addition to the above, if these kids commit crimes in and on school/school property, the school system should not only press charges against these problem kids but against the parents as well. This would end some of this nonsense that is going on. The administration keeps saying that it wants to make examples out of some of these unruly kids, so I suggest that the parents and children ‘bond together’ at 801 East 4th Street-the Mecklenburg County Jail.
Third, if CMS wants to attract and retain good teachers, then PAY them. If they are being paid below the US average and are first time teachers going to one of the ‘Problem 4’, the probability of that teacher returning will be very low.
Finally, implore more resources and funds at the ‘Problem 4’ schools to improve upon the entire atmosphere. It is not fair for one school to receive brand new resources and the other schools are behind with outdated resources and equipment. Everything should be on an equal and leveled playing field and these teachers would not be so stressed out trying to perform miracles with five loaves and two fish.
I was emotionally moved when I read this article because I am living this nightmare everyday. It is scary that a decade later, old news actually IS repeating itself. Seems a bit suspicious to me…
I have been having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning to go to work because of the facts stated in this article. All I want to do is go to a place of work where I do my job to the best of my ability and try and be as respectful and empathetic as possible while perhaps making a difference to this emotionally vacuous youth. This simple desire is incapable of realization because there is no such thing as respect, honor or dignity in CMS.
Mr. Patterson, why are you assuming Ms. Servatius is only speaking of black people when she says “rubbish”. She is speaking of ALL of the students in the system who are apathetic, hateful and think they are entitled to everything and anything. This spans ALL races, religions, political standpoints, etc. Don’t put words into people’s mouths.
I thank Ms. Servatius for telling the truth and hope people take this seriously. It is an epidemic that, if not stopped, will provide to be an incessant cancer on the next generation and beyond.
it is going to take the whole school and community to fix the problem at wc and other schools. the system thinks a time-line will make students learn or teachers be fired. the students are more than likely not on grade level to catch up in a short time. i also strongly believe that with time and parents stepping up the grades will come up. don’t fire the teachers that are trying to make our leaders. Give them support not a time-line.
Charles, if you really are a “playwrite”, people might take you more seriously if you could learn to spell “playwright”. It also might help to learn that words can also have CAPITAL LETTERS.
I saw no racial overtones in Ms. Servatius column. I think its indicative of a mental condition on your part that equates “violent behavior” with “black”.