Keep East Meck Strong!

Board Editorial
October 19, 2009
Filed under Commentary

As the school board prepares to make a decision on November 10^th, the issue at hand is not about the boundaries between East Meck and Myers Park, it’s whether the board wants to keep East Meck strong.

We believe the school board must take action or the school will face its greatest test that could ultimately lead to its demise.

 Approximately 700 students will be lost in 2010-2011 school year along with multiple programs and staff members.

The effects of losing vital programs and staff members will far outlast those of the dropping of so many students. What the school board fails to see is how detrimental this loss will be to remaining students. What about the friendships that have been made or the close connections formed between teachers and students, do they mean nothing? Will the loss of multiple programs hinder students’ chance of getting into a college of their choice? These are the questions the school board has failed to consider. Students at East are not just a number, contrary to the way we are being treated by our elected representatives.

We are disappointed that the opinions of the East community were ignored during the new Mint Hill high school rezoning. We are also disappointed that the options presented by the CMS planning department do little to further the continued development at East and to compensate for the loss of so many teachers, students, and resources. The school has worked so hard to maintain a rigorous International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement programs, a strong ASTI (All Star Teacher Initiative), and an award-winning culinary program that will soon lose funding and productivity.

 We also resent the fact that this battle to preserve out school has pitted our school against Myers Park and now Harding. The CMS bureaucrats making recommendations obviously never have had children or been in a Charlotte Mecklenburg high school because otherwise they would realize that this is not a numbers game.

The loyalty our students have to the school runs deep and can not be squandered by poor decision making by board officials. Future students here will never know it as the life changing place we know it as now because they will not have the same opportunities. We have succeeded in making an honorable name for ourselves as the school with the best environment to go through high school in, yet if it can not be measured with numbers and percentages it is completely irrelevant. This could be the beginning of the end of our great school. Is the board ready to let the school fall through the cracks?   

The real “crown jewel” of CMS should not be a school with the most abundant bank account, but the students themselves. We know that no matter where our lost students end up next year, they will always be an Eagle and Eagles will soar no matter where they land.

To the school board and Dr. Gorman: Keep East Meck strong!