PM Neighborhood Chat

CMS will spend the equivalent of science specialist Lucinda Dyer's salary to transport my child 10 miles through stop and go traffic to an IB school, when we live 1/4 mile plus one inch away from another IB school. Also, he will be the only student on the bus. Despite repeated attempts to engage our school board in these facts, including our own representative, Tom Tate, the irony lives on, devastating lives and not increasing any sort of guiding principle diversity.

No student in Plaza Midwood, Merry Oaks, Commonwealth, Country Club Heights is assigned to the IB School within one mile of these neighborhoods. Instead one opts to either wiggle through the lottery and maybe get in, and if you don't too bad, so instead of going to the school 1/4 mile away, people opt for Randolph IB or get assigned to Crestdale in Matthews or AG, or like us, Albemarle Road IB Middle School? Even Massive lay-offs, and exorbitant sky rocketing transportation costs is not enough to move THE CMS SCHOOL BOARD and make the most common sense,simple alterations to a busing situations that is 64 million dollars and counting, as gas prices go up again. The CMS SCHOOL BOARD is more than happy to ship us out and ship in students form Highland Creek, Davidson, etc. PLEASE make your voice heard. Start a petition on your street. Do something.

Hmm...I like the idea of "Giving up buses to keep more teachers"...

How about we start a simple blog or discussion forum (not part of PM website) where CMS parents can post messages to say which school their kids go to and if they are willing to give up their kids school bus in order to keep more teachers employed.

Once we know which and how many school buses to drop based on parents commitments, that would be powerful data to CMS.

Yes, I am agreeable,  so that we can start to revise these political lines that are ten years old and start addressing the needs of this community.  For too long we have merely vacated the close by school and have fallen into the lottery abyss.  Let's take back our schools...get language immersion here, we have natural diversity within a five mile area. 

How did your child fare during the lottery? Did you know that despite the fact that Plaza Midwood, Merry Oaks, Country Club Heights, Commonwealth are within 1 and 1/2 miles of Piedmont Middle School, these neighborhoods are not zoned into that school, while students from as far away as Highland Creek are? Did you know that this " not in zone" schools include Elizabeth Traditional, Villa Heights, Shamrock LITD, Highland Mills? Did you know that instead, we move into the Randolph Lottery and double and triple our own driving times not to mention time on the buses for our kids, or are assigned to Albemarle Road IB, even Ranson IB, despite the fact that we live within a mile of a school in this vicinity, Piedmont Middle. We also opt out and submit to the lottery in favor of Randolph because Randolph feeds to East and the high school feeder schoolsfor Piedmont are West Charlotte, Garringer,Harding. (Many of the students that are zoned into Piedmont like those from Elizabeth and South Park and Highland Creek have nice neighborhood high schools to attend like AG and Mallard Creek. We have to have a solution to this ongoing mess and need a coherent plan that does not involve massive busing,(high costs,, have to have and even worse, the fact is that long term exposure to bus fumes is hazardous to children's health), continued reliance and submission to a lottery, chance, flight, and fight. This area's school board representative is Tom Tate.