CMS announces Myers Park High coercion findings
Concedes to some improper handlings, focusing on recommendations
by Kathleen E. Conroy
kathleen@thecharlotteweekly.com

Landis Wade

“There needs to be heightened focus on counseling on alternative education options for those who may be considering withdrawing from school,” said Landis Wade, a Charlotte attorney with Helms, Mulliss, Wicker. “We need to look at how things are done, who’s involved and how documentation is maintained. Changes (also) need to be made to the re- enrollment process.”

Wade’s recommendations came during a tense news conference after a lengthy emergency school board meeting late Friday, April 27. CMS officials and attorneys announced they had reviewed Wade’s 125-page report after he, his staff and CMS central office employees conducted an “exhaustive” investigation.

“Some allegations were substantiated, some were not and some were inconclusive. We recommend to the superintendent that the district revise the withdrawal procedures that CMS currently uses,” he said.

The announcement essentially cleared one of CMS’s top high schools from allegations that were first revealed in August 2006 in a Charlotte Post article. Time magazine then published a story in March 2007 suggesting that former administrators – specifically during the 2002-05 tenure of Principal Bill Anderson – at the high-performing Myers Park had tinkered with its enrollment of low-performing students to keep its ranking high.

The story detailed a 16-year-old freshman’s claim that she had been coerced to leave the school after garnering a number of disciplinary suspensions, mainly for disruptive behavior and excessive absenteeism, and then was denied readmission a year later. Documents obtained by Time coupled with interviews with students, parents and staff “strongly suggest that Myers Park had an unofficial policy of ridding itself of underperforming students … from 2002 to 2005 … by using tactics including listing dropouts as out-of-state transfers,” according to Time.

When the national magazine published its report, CMS stepped up its own internal investigation and hired Wade, a Myers Park graduate, to look into the allegations.

Wade walked members of the media through the investigation process, noting that they focused mainly on 32 students, 16 of whom were “coded” improperly in the withdrawal process. “CMS wanted to know who they were and how this happened,” he said, noting that they focused mainly on records from 2004 and 2005.

“We concluded that there was not a concerted plan or practice to coerce certain types of at-risk students,” said Wade.

As for withdrawing students because of excessive absenteeism, the report showed investigators found three files that “raised some issues about attendance.”

CMS’s attendance policy currently places students in a “violator category after 10 consecutive absences … but you do not drop them until you make every effort to keep that child in school.”

The report notes that Anderson felt that attendance was one of the top factors for students to be successful in school. “We did find some documents that raised some concerns. For example, on an attendance record, Anderson would write ‘Drop – 42 days is way too many.’”

Wade noted that the report did find an “improper memo” from Anderson to counselors dated March 11, 2004. The memo listed students with 15 or more unexcused absences and requested that staff eventually “call them in and tell them they are withdrawn for one year because of attendance violations.”

“That is not consistent with required practice,” Wade said, “and Anderson admitted his mistake. We did find that some students were excluded for the year if they had chronic attendance violations, and you cannot exclude them if they want to come back to school,” Wade said.

Superintendent Peter Gorman said he is reviewing the report now and will decide whether any disciplinary actions are needed. “We spent a lot of time on this. I’m looking forward to implementing the recommendations in the report,” he said.

The Myers Park report, will be posted on the CMS Web site, according to district spokesperson Kathleen Bell. The report first must be edited to remove names of students and administrators to protect their privacy under state law.