Commissioner BillJames, Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners, District 6

Busting the Myth Busters

Kaye McGarry, CMS At-Large Board Member

kbmcg@carolina.rr.com

Larry Gauvreau, CMS District 1 Board Member

gauvreau@bellsouth.net

Commissioner Bill James, District 6

Bill@billjames.org

Commissioner Jim Puckett, District 1

jhpucket@bellsouth.net

Commissioner Dan Bishop, District 5

Dan@votedanbishop.com

The Truth About Utilization of Newly Replaced Urban-Core Schools

http://billjames.org/ListBuilder/listbuilder-email-9-22-2005-Busting the CMS Mythbusters.htm

"....Rather, CMS and the Chamber simply told us one thing when they asked approval to spend the money; they now tell us another to hide that the money was spent foolishly.........Is it any wonder that there is a crisis of confidence in the stewardship of our tax dollars and public schools? It's time for a new direction. No more poorly prioritized, wasteful spending. Vote NO on the school bond issue, and the County Commission can begin focused funding of the real school construction priorities THIS FALL."

In June, five Republican officials urged the Board of Education to propose an affordable school bond referendum focused on the most critical construction need—new schools and new seat additions. In our recommendation, we mentioned that, because of poor prioritization in the recent past, suburban overcrowding has been insufficiently addressed while “serviceable schools [in the urban core] were razed and replaced only to be half-filled.” We cited eight examples and observed that reconstructed First Ward Elementary “has 49 classrooms for 639 students—13 students per room.”

The School Board ignored our recommendation and sent a whopping $510 million request to the Board of County Commissioners. There, the Democrat majority whittled it—by cutting funds for new school sites! We have urged voters to defeat this still-bloated, misprioritized school bond and then ride herd on the Commissioners to accelerate construction of new seats with COP’s (Certificates of Participation Bonds) , STARTING THIS FALL.

Two weeks ago, on behalf of a well-financed pro-bond campaign, school board member and Chamber of Commerce official Kit Cramer labeled a “myth” our report of half-full, newly rebuilt schools. She claimed utilization rates of 89% or more for the eight schools we cited, except for two in the mid-60s and one that is a foreign language immersion program in transition. A number of recently replaced schools, Ms. Cramer claimed, are at more than 100% capacity

Well, Ms. Cramer, you didn’t say where you got your numbers, but we’ll tell you where we get ours. From CMS and your bond campaign web site.

The table below sets forth 2004-05 utilization rates of every one of the replaced schools cited in your memo. (The schools in bold are the ones we mentioned in our paper.) The figures are calculated from the CMS 2004-05 20th-day enrollment list and school capacities of reconstructed schools published by the bond campaign: See “Bond Projects 1996-2005,” http://www.voteyesforbonds.com/SummaryBondFundYears.pdf

School	Enrollment	¹	Capacity	³	Cramer Utilization Claim	Actual 2004-05 Utilization	Sq. Ft. Per Student	⁶
Barringer ES	676		800		92%	85%	137
Druid Hills ES	428		800		89%	54%	217
First Ward ES	639		800		119%	80%	146
Highland Mills Mont.	231		572	⁴	88%	40%	210
Lincoln Heights ES	471		800		100%	59%	195
J.H. Gunn ES	653		800		112%	82%	138
Merry Oaks ES	529		800		129%	66%	182
Pinewood ES	388		800	⁵	115%	49%	220
Selwyn ES	517		572		124%	90%	149
Sterling ES	430		800		89%	54%	215
Windsor Park ES	541		800	⁵	121%	68%	178
Ashley Park ES	268		572		64%	47%	270
Billingsville ES	550	²	800	²	81%	69%	173
Eastover ES	440		575		114%	77%	146
Eliz. Trad. ES	522		575		103%	91%	182
M.P. Trad. ES	620		800		102%	78%	170
Oakhurst ES	479		800		83%	60%	200
Oaklawn ES	184		572	⁴	58%	32%	410
Thomasboro ES	420		800		92%	53%	251
Westerly Hills ES	337		800		66%	42%	220
Walter G. Byers	430		800		91%	54%	211

¹	2004-05 20-day enrollment. Curent facilities management stats produce similar results
²	Independently sourced
³	Planned capacity per www.voteyesforbonds.com/SummaryBondFundYears.pdf
⁴	Capacity not stated; projected from similar cost Ashley Park project
⁵	Capacity assumed by cost equivalent to full replacement.
⁶	From CMS-furnished square footage figures, excluding trailers

Median utilization - 9 schools bolded:						54%
- all replaced schools:						60%
Median from Cramer's figures, 9 schools:					92%
- all replaced schools:					92%

Now, compare these new elementary schools, eight of which are approximately half-full, with 29 others, mostly suburban, where permanent space per student is as little as one-fourth that in schools CMS has replaced. For example, Steele Creek has 60 square feet of permanent space per student, compared with 270 square feet per student at Ashley Park—almost five time less:

School	Enrollment	¹	Sq. Ftge.	Sq. Ft. Per Student	# Trailers
Steele Creek	1087		65753	60	16
Lake Wylie	1312		79410	61	21
Cornelius	1299		80505	62	20
Hawk Ridge	1196		84237	70	22
McKee Road	886		63847	72	8
David Cox Rd	1109		82370	74	16
Huntersville	1171		93766	80	16
University Meadows	959		76880	80	7
Blythe	1454		121292	83	17
Hickory Grove	744		62700	84	7
Elizabeth Lane	962		81400	85	7
Long Creek	741		65305	88	11
Smithfield	944		83480	88	9
Olde Providence	716		63417	89	4
Bain	836		74091	89	4
Mcalpine	754		67362	89	4
Mt. Island	979		91158	93	10
Pineville	722		67932	94	2
Collinswood	510		47993	94	6
Paw Creek	854		80809	95	3
Crown Point	754		71953	95	2
Matthews	993		95323	96	0
Hornets Nest	743		72115	97	3
Newell	741		71968	97	4
Sharon	539		53198	99	0
Reedy Creek	667		65865	99	6
Albemarle Road	713		70632	99	10
Pawtuckett	455		45136	99	6

So, as we stated, eight elementary schools replaced at a cost of over $90 million are approximately half-full, not one replaced school is full, and 29 schools that have not been augmented are from Two-and-a-half to four-and-a-half times as crowded as those schools CMS decided to replace.

As for Ms. Cramer’s myth-busting, we hope she will explain how Lincoln Heights Elementary, for example, is at 100% of capacity with 471 students in a spanking new building built for 800. We suspect that she would have to reveal that her utilization statistics for replaced urban core schools are built on changed “capacity.” Not that any of the school buildings constructed in the urban core are any smaller or different than set forth in the “Project Scope” column of that table on voteyesforbonds.com. Rather, CMS and the Chamber simply told us one thing when they asked approval to spend the money; they now tell us another to hide that the money was spent foolishly.

Is it any wonder that there is a crisis of confidence in the stewardship of our tax dollars and public schools? It's time for a new direction. No more poorly prioritized, wasteful spending. Vote NO on the school bond issue, and the County Commission can begin focused funding of the real school construction priorities THIS FALL.

Kaye McGarry, BOE At-Large

Jim Puckett, BOCC District 1

Larry Gauvreau, BOE District 1

Jaye M. Alexander, BOE Candidate, District 3

Ellen Loflin, BOE Candidate District 5

Dan Bishop, BOCC District 5

Bill James, BOCC District 6

OTHER WEB LINKS ON "Voting No" on the CMS Bonds...........

http://billjames.org/video%20files/CMS%20Bonds-%20web%20page.htm

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