NAACP holds community meeting about regrouping
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on July 29, 2016 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
School board member Patricia Burden, center, answers a question about the regrouping plan Thursday night during a forum hosted by the Goldsboro-Wayne NAACP held at the Community Crisis Center.
The Goldsboro/Wayne NAACP held a community meeting Thursday night for residents to express concerns about the regrouping plan recently passed by the Wayne County Board of Education.
About three dozen showed up, including four school board members -- Chairman Chris West, Eddie Radford, Patricia Burden and Dwight Cannon -- and two candidates for seats on the board, Trebor Jackson and Raymond Smith. The six became part of a panel responding to audience questions.
There were some rumblings about the panel make-up during the session, originally to have been for candidates. That category would have included Ms. Burden, who is seeking re-election, Jackson and Smith.
When West, Radford and Cannon showed up, organizers hastily moved tables and chairs and created a more formal set-up in the Community Crisis Center hall.
Iris Robinson, a parent and grandparent, said the purpose for the gathering was to address some of the issues "if you are running for a seat on the Board of Education.
"We're have to learn as leaders, caregivers and parents to be more proactive and make sure our children's education is a priority," she said. "It's not enough to say that you're running or holding a seat but to be the voice of the people.
"Hopefully this meeting will serve as a starting point making us aware of how we might better serve one another."
While the regrouping plan has already passed, she pointed out that there is a perception that only children in the central attendance area are affected, suggesting those students were being treated like a "herd of cattle."
Francine Smith, NAACP second vice president, blamed the schools uninviting atmosphere on the poor turnout at the community meeting.
"Our parents don't feel welcome in your environment," she said.
School board members fielded most of the questions about the logistics of the plan, as well as why the central attendance area was "targeted."
It was in large part, they said, because of the schools' locations in proximity to one other, in contrast to schools in outlying areas that were farther apart.
Last September, when the latest test scores showed that 11 Wayne County schools were considered low-performing, most of them were in the central attendance area.
The regrouping plan, designed to improve performance and scores, was announced in the spring. Backlash from the public prompted a community meeting at Goldsboro High School on June 16. The next day at a called school board meeting, the plan passed.
It calls for a reconfiguration of four elementary schools and Dillard Middle School.
K-2 students from Carver Heights and School Street elementary schools will now attend North Drive Elementary, which becomes a K-2 school.
Carver Heights becomes a grades 3-5 school, pulling students from those grades from North Drive, School Street and Dillard Middle. Dillard will now have grades 6-8.
School Street is being repurposed to expand Pre-K services, with the development of an early learning center on its campus.
This is not the first time the district has done a regrouping plan, Ms. Burden said.
"When the city schools and the county schools merged (then-superintendent) Dr. Brayboy regrouped the schools so that they would look like the schools in the county," she said.
"Did it work?" asked parent Machelle Moore.
Kim Copeland, director of middle schools and performing arts, fielded the question since she had taught at Carver Heights during that era. She also lived in the central attendance area and her children went through those schools.
It became a grades 2-3 school, she said, with North Drive serving grades K-1, School Street housing fourth-graders and Dillard catering to grades 5-6.
"It worked, I would say, as a teacher, as an educator, as a parent," she said. "Every K-1 teacher got the same training, every K-1 student got the same opportunity."
She praised the new plan, especially for students attending Carver Heights, where an Apple grant this past year afforded every student at the school be given an iPad. That will become the case for incoming students, she said.
"I see a lot of opportunities and there's a lot to look forward to," Ms. Copeland said. "Right now we have not redistricted but this board has taken more steps to try to get us to that point. But right now I think this is a really good solution."
Shirley Edwards, the local NAACP political action chair, served as moderator and shared audience questions. One was why now, if the problem with low-performing schools has been around for several years.
"I would say probably, more than likely, we have a different administration, we have a different vision," West said, attributing the hiring of superintendent Michael Dunsmore a year ago and the leadership team he has built.
"We have an assistant superintendent in Tamara Berman Ishee, who's in charge of curriculum," he said of the Harvard graduate. "She was a teaching principal in Massachusetts. She took the lowest performing high school in her district, she brought some of those same concepts here to WCPS.
"Her high school went from the lowest performing high school in the district to the most performing high school."
At one point, when the dominant responses came from school board members, an audience member suggested others on the panel, running for office, be heard from.
Cannon, who had just answered a question, bristled.
"Does that mean I need to go sit out there?" he asked. "I'd be happy to."
He said he had not intended to be part of the panel, but was there to lend support to the discussion.
Ms. Edwards attempted to explain that candidates were part of the forum, but that changed when they had "allowed the chairman of the board" to be part of it. West asserted that he had not been invited to attend.
"I came only for support tonight," he said. "I was not expecting to be on this panel. I was asked to sit up here."
West, the father of two, said that his main concern has been the test scores across the county, not just in the central attendance area.
"We have got 65 to 70 percent in the central attendance area performing at below grade level," he said. "As a parent that would be my biggest concern. They don't stand a chance. If you've got 65 to 70 percent of your student body performing below grade level, something's not working.
"We haven't made changes in the administration in 14 years. I applaud (WCPS leadership) for being proactive and trying to do something to give every child the opportunity to learn."
Ms. Burden said in hindsight, the regrouping plan could have been presented different to the public.
"By Dr. Dunsmore coming in brand new, things came up that we didn't expect even as a board and then working to get this in place, meeting with every principal," she said. "During our interview (to hire him) we stressed that we wanted to deal with those schools that were not performing up to par.
"But we can't go back and make up for that. What we can do is move forward."