County School Board members are divided over whether to close Chattanooga Middle School and expand the nearby Normal Park Museum Magnet School onto that campus.
At a board work session on Monday night attended by an overflow crowd, Rev. Samuel Jackson said existing students at CMS "have been totally left out of the equation."
He said, "If Normal Park is such a great program, why can't these students get the benefit of it?"
Another member of the audience, parent of a Normal Park student, praised the award-winning school and said she welcomed its expansion.
Supt. Jim Scales said the plan is to eventually expand Normal Park to include up to eighth grade. Eventually grades 4-8 of Normal Park would be in the current CMS building.
Dr. Scales said, "We are expanding a program that has been extremely successful." He said, on the other hand, CMS has a declining enrollment and is in danger of being taken over by the state.
He said CMS is down to 248 students in a building that will hold 550. He said only 161 students zoned for the school attend there.
Rev. Jackson said a task force that includes ministers and civil rights leaders is being formed on the issue. CMS is over 90 percent black, while Normal Park is 76 percent white.
On the issue of busing students, Dr. Scales said an Office of Civil Rights edict no longer applies. He said county school officials were recently notified by the Justice Department "that we are a unitary district. The vestiges of segregation have been removed."
There would be some controversial zoning changes along with the switch.
Current CMS students would be zoned to Dalewood (91), Howard Middle (41) and Red Bank Middle (56).
Zoning for Normal Park would be expanded to take in Spears Avenue and W. Bell in North Chattanooga. Those students are now zoned for Red Bank Elementary.
Board member Everett Fairchild said he sees advantages in expanding Normal Park, but he said, "I have a problem with the different ways we treat different people. There is no equity in this at all."
Another board member, Rhonda Thurman, who said she favors neighborhood schools, said, "We are zoning students away from where they want to go. We are doing a number of them and their parents" and she said it would make more students leave the county schools.
On the busing involved, she said, "We are putting more in the ozone thing than we are putting students in the classroom."
Board member Chip Baker praised the Normal Park program and its expansion, and board member Janice Boydston said she was blown away in a recent visit to the school. She said, "It amazed me to see what was going on academically there."
The school board meets in regular session on Nov. 15.
Khalid Hashmi, who attended the meeting on Monday night, wrote this letter to Dr. Scales:
Dear Dr. Scales,
Referring our letter of November 5, 2007 and after attending the meeting at HDCE held on November 6, 2007, we feel deeply disappointed that the allegation, we had referred, seemed to bear truth. Again with respect to our educators, I have been asked by the Task Force to bring the following issues and discrepancies’ to your attention and request an urgent response. Again I am writing this letter to attest our full support to this cause and confirm that the Board of Community Law Clinic has decided to fully support the Task Force in their endeavor to achieve equal access to education, and request a modified and more progressive approach with community and Task Force co-operation and feedback and request a reconsideration of the proposal presented.
Last night on Monday the November 4th, 2007, in the meeting your administrative proposal was discussed. We will like you to kindly address the following queries and issues regarding the Chattanooga Middle Museum Magnet located at 1219 West Mississippi Avenue Chattanooga, TN 37405 with approximately 283 students referring your Administrative proposal:
1. CMS proposed to be moved with a result shown in your report in 1 Year growth in Math and Reading to have improved from D an D respectively to B and A respectively and in Social Studies from and Science from F and F respectively to D and A . We believe it is a tremendous progress of teachers and students as per the Report; you produced to State for the subject School. From 2 F(s) and 2 D(s) to 2 A(s) 1 B and one D from F. This progress from any standard is just phenomenal.
2. Why, you want to transfer these students to Dalewood with almost similar report dislocating 91 students not with an opportunity to excel because this school had similar situation and is struggling with similar issues and itself needs help, 41 students to HSAT Middle with its own challenges and 1F- failing grade, as per your own report. Task Force feels, this will risk the ongoing progress of the students and result in a psychological trauma when, they are progressing well. The students going to Red Bank Middle with slightly better academic results shown with 2(s) and 2B(s), the only difference is the 1D at CMS, but the progress is from 2 (s) and 2 (s). In the light of your report, the decision makes no sense, especially when the students going to a slightly better school go through the unnecessary psychological trauma of dislocation due to failure, when the students are not failing. What about continuing to work to provide resources in the same place and work to increase enrolment through positive and creative effort. We all know population is increasing in that zone. It is obvious from the proposed construction projects of about 200 million dollars I the next two years in the immediate neighborhood.
3. This report does indicate East lake Academy, East Ridge, and Sale Creek and Tyner all with 1D. Furthermore to our surprise Hixson Middle and Soddy Middle with 1D and 1F respectively and Orchard Knob with 1 F Mr. Superintendent worse schools with D and F in 1 year academic growth unfortunately got no attention for making their academic progress and you rather chose to target a school showing visible potential. It appears prejudicial and gives weight to the comments of the Rev. Samuel Jackson, who made a mention of classism and racism as a being immoral and illegal and we repeat question the proposal after careful review and ask for an immediate explanation.
4. The High School results are indicating, in the same report, that students under performed in Algebra in 12 schools, in Biology in 9 schools and at English in 6 schools getting a grade of “Below” from the Hamilton County Education Department. All this focus on CMS and fear of losing the school to the Stat, in this scenario, seems unrealistic. The report indicates, the attention and administrative proposal is apparently either flawed or biased and targeting a better school. We will like to see an administrative report focused on the entire school system and all students equally, first addressing the worse problems.
Finally, we are asking you to very address and investigate, if at any points the first amendment rights of the educators with reference to communication with students, parents and community were either compromised or challenged as alleged. We must again remind to ourselves that under section 109 of the Housing and Community Act of 1974 referring Title 1 and Title V1, as amended, USC 42, U.S.C. 5301-532, Section 6.4 we cannot even have the appearance of Denying or Providing benefits that are different, or are provided in a different form, from that provided to others under any program or activity; Subject …to segregated or separate treatment in any facility, or in any matter of process related to the receipt of any service or benefit under any program or activity;
Restrict an individual's access to, or enjoyment of, any advantage or privilege enjoyed by others in connection with benefits under the program or activity; treat… differently from others in determining whether the … satisfies any admission, enrollment, eligibility…” The minority students cannot be treated differently in anyway as a moral principle and the law of the land dictates. Thanking you and looking forward for an urgent meeting,
Respectfully,
Khalid Hashmi
Chief Operating Office,
Community Law Clinic
Member, Task Force