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Some parents worry K-8 schools expose young children to crime

By Stephanie Maxwell
By Stephanie Maxwell

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Some parents and education advocates are calling on Charlotte-Mecklenburg School leaders to reconsider the district's K-8 schools and go back to traditional schools. They said it's a safety issue, and younger children shouldn't be in the same building with much older students.

Adrienne Rutledge relies on the after-school program at First Baptist Church-West to keep her four kids until she gets off work. During the school day she worries most about her young son, Domingo, who attends a K-8 school.

"I just don't like the fact that we have little kids with the older kids," Rutledge explained. "Some things that my kids hadn't even experienced yet, they were learning from the older kids."

Her three other children also attended a K-8 school, and she told Channel 9 anchor Stephanie Maxwell she wasn't surprised by the latest report from the North Carolina Board of Education about school crime and violence.

[NC School Crime Report]

It showed out of the 12 schools in the CMS district that are pre-K through 8th grade or kindergarten through 8th grade, seven have crime rates higher than the district and state average. Some are more than three times the CMS average.

"We want our kids to go and get their education," Rutledge said.  "We don't want them to be scared to go to school to get their education."

Westerly Hills Academy had 12 crimes during the 2015-16 school year, including five assaults on teachers and three incidents of possession of a controlled substance.

Reid Park Academy showed seven crimes, including assault with a weapon and three assaults on teachers.

Walter G. Byers School reported nine crimes, four involving possession of a weapon, and an incident last March when someone started a fire in a school bathroom that forced students and staff to go home.

Dr. Ricky Woods, the senior minister at First Baptist-West, wants district leaders to eliminate K-8 schools because he said the majority are in high-crime, low-poverty areas. The majority of traditional middle schools in CMS are below the crime rate averages for both the district and state.

"I think those older kids tend to be more rambunctious," he said.  "They tend to be kids that want to impress other kids, which often times leads to bullying smaller kids."

Superintendent Ann Clark says the CMS Board will discuss grade-level structure during the next few months, as it looks at changing school boundaries. But she said those schools aren't solely to blame for problems that arise.

"That opportunity for influence happens beyond the school house. These are kids that live in the same neighborhood, same apartment complexes. I think we might have anticipated more challenges than we've really had,” Clark said.

CMS's next superintendent, Dr. Clayton Wilcox, said he thinks K-8 schools can work, but the school structure isn't the most important factor for success.

"What makes a school work is great leadership and great teachers in the classroom. I'm not so sure it's designed by the spread of ages,” Wilcox said.

Woods wants the district's next leader to look at the data, which he said is evidence the school structure is putting students at risk.

"These are not just our kids," he said. "This is our community that's now at risk."

Maxwell talked to the CMS police chief, who said they're using several tools to decrease crimes in schools, including the K-8 schools, which includes the district's drug dog that tries to do at least two searches a day, and officers mentoring students to encourage them to avoid criminal activity.

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