The cost of keeping Charlotte schools closed

Plus: Political types jostle for position as filing season opens; Blakeney shopping center sold for $181M; YMCA lost $40M in pandemic, new CEO says; Bojangles unwraps Midtown restaurant

Nov 29, 2021

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Editor’s note: A version of the following article was published last week by WFAE in a series of articles examining the academic effects in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools of keeping kids out of classrooms. We are sharing it with you with permission.

CMS’ reliance on virtual learning led to big drops in test scores — worse than neighboring districts that accelerated in-person instruction

by Steve Harrison and Ann Doss Helms, WFAE

When annual assessment test scores were released in September for the 2020-2021 pandemic year, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Earnest Winston and other officials said the results were bleak.

They talked about the pandemic setting the district back so far that it would take a “multi-year effort” to recover.

But part of that learning loss is likely due to the choices CMS made — not just the pandemic itself.

A WFAE analysis of two years of test data shows CMS’s drops were arguably made worse by the school board’s decision — at Winston’s recommendation — to rely on online learning for almost all of the 2020-21 school year.

For elementary school students, CMS generally had larger drops than other districts in the Charlotte area, most of which brought students back for in-person learning much earlier. Black students in CMS did particularly badly, as did low-income students, Hispanic students and English learners.

The biggest losses were in math.

“This was absolutely the most inequitable set of decisions and actions the board has taken in decades — bar none,” said CMS board member Sean Strain, who pushed unsuccessfully for more in-person class time. “And we can see it in all of the results.”

He said he noticed that CMS often did much worse than neighboring school systems, even after accounting for factors like income, race and ethnicity.

“You can see it in spades. And (minority students) were already in a position where they couldn’t afford to lose,” Strain said.

CMS board vice-chair Thelma Byers-Bailey said she agrees that staying remote for most of 2020-21 contributed to the decline.

But she doesn’t regret the district’s cautious approach. Local health experts in July 2020 didn’t give a firm recommendation about returning to school, leaving a difficult decision to the board.

Going back quickly “just wasn’t a risk we were willing to take,” she said. “We would rather have the student lose some education but still have the student so that we can catch them up when they come back, rather than have that student be gone.”

She added: “As far as I was concerned, that was the only thing that we could do. I was not willing to live with the death of our students on a rolling basis.”

But the belief that widespread COVID-19 transmission in schools would occur has been debunked by several studies, including one study that examined 11 North Carolina school districts with in-person instruction during the first nine weeks of the school year. It found “extremely limited” spread of COVID-19 in schools.

It is difficult to draw meaningful conclusions by examining the number of COVID-19-related deaths among children in Charlotte-area counties because the numbers are low regardless of whether schools chose mainly in-person or virtual instruction. Mecklenburg has had three deaths of COVID-19 patients under age 18, while the surrounding 10 counties have had a total of one, according to state data.

What test scores show

In its analysis, WFAE focused on Charlotte-area elementary school students, who had wide differences in how much time they spent in class. Some districts, such as Iredell-Statesville and Lincoln, had elementary students in class five days a week starting in October 2020.

Most CMS elementary students were entirely virtual until early November 2020. They then attended in-person classes two days a week for about a month before switching to virtual before winter break. In January, Mecklenburg County health director Gibbie Harris issued a stay-at-home recommendation, which pushed back the return to school.

The CMS board didn’t bring students back to the classroom until February, and it wasn’t until March 22 — a week into the fourth quarter — that elementary schools began a four-day-a-week “Plan A” schedule.

WFAE looked at the scores by race, ethnicity and income and by subject matter and grade.

Before the pandemic, Black third graders in CMS had higher scores than Black third graders in 10 nearby districts that included Cleveland, Gaston, Iredell-Statesville, Lincoln, Catawba, Union, Cabarrus, Rowan, Stanly and Anson.

But a year of mostly virtual learning wiped much of that out.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, which kept classrooms shut last year longer than surrounding districts, had the largest drops in test scores among local school systems.

In math, 58% of CMS Black third-graders were proficient two years ago. That was higher than 10 other districts in the Charlotte area.

But in 2020-21, the percent of Black CMS third graders who were proficient in math dropped by 35 percentage points. That was by far the largest drop in the region.

There were also drops in reading, though not as large.

Before the pandemic, Black third graders in CMS (48%) scored slightly higher than Black third graders in Union County (46%).

Union started the school year with elementary students in school two days a week and then went to four days a week in late October.

The percent of Black CMS third graders who were deemed at grade level dropped by 19.9 percentage points — the largest decline in the Charlotte region. Union fell by 11.7 points.

Iredell-Statesville: More time in class, smaller drops

One of the biggest contrasts was between CMS and Iredell-Statesville schools, a smaller suburban district.

Iredell has a higher percentage of white students than CMS, and it has fewer students who are considered economically disadvantaged. Across the country, those demographics almost always correspond to higher overall scores. But WFAE took a deeper dive to control for those factors and looked at students of the same demographic groups.

Iredell-Statesville brought its elementary students back for five days a week in early October. It also had some of the smallest drops in test scores in the state.

For instance, before the pandemic, Iredell (41%) and CMS (42%) had nearly the same passing rate in reading for third graders who are economically disadvantaged.

When this year’s scores were released, CMS had dropped 20 percentage points; Iredell fell by 3.

Iredell Superintendent Jeff James said district officials realized in the spring of 2020 that online school wasn’t working.

“‘Ghosting’ is when someone disappears in the virtual world and you can not find them,” James said. “And we had quite a few of those, and unfortunately, it tended to be more heavily in our at-risk students, and we needed them in class.”

Jonathan Ribbeck, the district’s chief academic officer for elementary schools, said teachers looked at their own school-based test results (students didn’t take state-mandated tests that year) in the summer of 2020 after schools were closed for nearly three months when COVID-19 first arrived.

“We had teachers and staff saying, ‘Look at these numbers,'” he said. “We have to have kids in five days. We can’t afford to even miss a day.”

At the elementary level, CMS’ biggest challenge was in math, where students posted some of the largest drops in the region in grades 3, 4 and 5.

Strain, the CMS board member, points to overall math scores for third-graders. In Cabarrus County, they fell about 13 percentage points.

“And that’s a terrible position to be in,” Strain said. “Our kids fell 30%. Three times as far. Three times as many kids were negatively impacted.”

CMS fifth graders — the only grade in elementary to take the end-of-grade science test — posted some of the largest declines in the region.

CMS third graders saw large drops in reading. But students in fourth and fifth grades did better, with declines that were in line with the state and other districts in the Charlotte area, like Iredell and Cabarrus.

CMS board member Carol Sawyer supported a more cautious return to in-person instruction. She says there’s little value in looking backward to make comparisons.

“I’m sure somebody could do a meta-data analysis on it, but, you know, for me it’s like that doesn’t really inform us,” she said.

She said CMS shouldn’t be compared to neighboring school districts.

“I would push back on that,” Sawyer said. “I looked at Wake and Durham and other large urbans. I mean, I don’t think it’s fair to compare us to small rural districts.”

The problem with comparing CMS to large districts is that those districts made similar decisions to stay remote — and there would be no control group to judge the impact of being virtual for most of the year.

Harvard Professor Marty West led a review of more than 300 studies of the impact of COVID-19 on schools for the Center for Reinventing Public Education.

He said it’s “certainly the case” the large districts like CMS had unique organizational and logistical challenges. But he said despite the differences and size and demographics, it’s OK to compare Black students in a smaller district to Black students in an urban district.

“But looking back, we can still make the comparisons between the changes in achievement that we see across those two settings,” he said.

Community still divided

Dee Rankin is a Black CMS parent who serves on the CMS Equity Committee and follows education issues for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Black Political Caucus. He said he doesn’t think it’s fair to compare CMS with smaller districts or to blame district officials for playing it safe while COVID-19 was hitting Black and Hispanic families especially hard. About two-thirds of CMS students fall into those two groups, a higher percentage than in neighboring districts.

“I know there were other parents that were pushing, pushing, pushing to go back in person, but it just wasn’t safe,” Rankin said. “You had to weigh your options. Do we rush back just because we know that in-person’s better? Or is our health worth — our lives worth — you know, staying remote, helping keep families safe and then figuring out strategies later to make up for the learning loss?”

But Alba Sanchez, who works with newly arrived families through Charlotte’s Latin American Coalition, says she’s hearing a lot of frustration.

“I can tell you, Latino families are furious and tired with CMS,” Sanchez said.

The district has 40,000 Latino students this year, outnumbering white students in CMS and the total enrollment of all but six districts in North Carolina.

Fear of catching and spreading COVID-19 was real in the Latino community, Sanchez said, but people who lacked English skills, technology and knowledge of a complex school system couldn’t help their kids keep up.

“And what I see here working with families, it didn’t work for the Latino families," Sanchez said. "Maybe for a few months, but not for the entire school year.”

Latino elementary students had large drops in math proficiency. In 2019, 61% of Latino third graders were proficient in math. This year, that fell to less than 24%, a nearly 40 percentage-point drop.

Related articles in WFAE’s series:

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As city election filings loom, local politicos plot strategy

It sounds like an odd thing to say heading into December, but it’s about to be political season here in Charlotte.

Filing for city elections starts in a week, and local political types are buzzing about who is running for what office. There are guaranteed to be at least a few changes. City elections are usually in Novembers of odd-numbered years, but this year’s primary is pushed back until March 8, with a general election on April 26 or May 17 (depending on if there are runoffs) because of Covid-related delays in receiving census data.

Democrats have a 9-2 advantage over Republicans on the City Council and are expected to continue to dominate. But votes on city issues don’t always fall as neatly along party lines as they do in state and federal government.

The Ledger talked last week with political operatives from both political parties. Here are some of the major themes that seem to be emerging:

◼️ Mayor looking strong for re-election: Mayor Vi Lyles announced on Thanksgiving that she’s running for a third term. She is generally regarded as unbeatable and unlikely to attract major challengers. Although she just formally announced, insiders had expected her to run again, especially after council member Malcolm Graham — who is thought to be interested in serving as mayor some day — said last week that he plans to run for re-election to his District 2 seat.

◼️ Will Smuggie mount a comeback? Longtime council member James “Smuggie” Mitchell resigned from the council in January to take a job with R.J. Leeper Construction, which does business with the city. But he and that company parted ways in July, and he told The Charlotte Post that he’d consider running for City Council again at some point. That leaves some politicos wondering whether he will jump back in now. But it’s unclear if he still has a financial stake in the company, which would keep him from serving.

◼️ At-large musical chairs: With Mayor Pro Tem Julie Eiselt saying she’s not running for a fourth term, that opens the door for a new at-large member. And council member Greg Phipps, who was appointed this year to serve the rest of Mitchell’s term, has said he won’t run, so there will be at least two changes in the four at-large council seats. District 1 rep Larken Egleston says he’s running at-large. So is former District 3 rep LaWana Mayfield. Braxton Winston and Dimple Ajmera are expected to run for re-election to their at-large seats.

No Republican has been elected to an at-large City Council seat since 2009. But with recent Republican successes this month in other states and an unprecedented spring general election that could have unusually low turnout, some are thinking this could be the year. District 6 rep Tariq Bokhari says he’s hoping to recruit a couple candidates, Kyle Luebke and James Broyhill, to run at-large.

◼️ District races: A couple of the more interesting storylines could be what happens in seats where there is no incumbent running. With Egleston pursuing an at-large seat, District 1 — which contains uptown and neighborhoods close to uptown — could have a competitive race. Billy Maddalon has said he’s running, and Danté Anderson is also believed to be running. The eastside District 5 seat will also be open, with council member Matt Newton saying he’s running for judge. Some of the candidates could be previous contenders Darrell Bonapart and Vinroy Reid as well as newcomer Marjorie Molina.

Filing for office runs from Dec. 6-17. —TM

A new owner for Blakeney shopping center

A big south Charlotte shopping center has a new owner: Northwood Investors has sold its Blakeney and Blakeney Crossing shopping centers for $181M, according to county real estate filings.

The new owner is Regency Centers Corp., a real estate company that’s one of the country’s largest owners of shopping centers that have grocery stores. Blakeney has a Harris Teeter, Target and Marshalls, along with restaurants including 131 Main and Shake Shack; Blakeney Crossing has Best Buy and Petsmart.

Desirable demos: Marketing materials for Blakeney describe it as in a highly desirable location, with average household income of $141,000 within three miles. The typical Blakeney shoppers, the materials say, are psychographic profiles known as “The Affluent Active Mom” (“fit, organized and on trend”), “Newly Married Professionals” (“educated, tech savvy, energetic and aspirational”) and “Emptying the Nest/The Next Chapter” (“educated, discretionary income, casual sophistication”).

The two shopping centers, at Ardrey Kell and Rea roads, have about 544,000 s.f. on about 53 acres. The Charlotte Business Journal’s Book of Lists says Blakeney is the 8th-largest shopping center in Charlotte.

In an earnings call this month, Regency’s CEO called Blakeney an “exceptional asset” and a “high-quality, well-leased center with strong demographics and a tenant mix that fits well with our strategy.” —TM

Quotable: Charlotte YMCA’s huge drop in revenue

Stanley Law, the incoming CEO of the YMCA of Greater Charlotte, in an interview this month with QCity Metro:

We’ve obviously gone through a lot. We’ve lost lots of members; we’ve lost lots of revenue. Unfortunately, because of those two things, we’ve lost lots of staff. So every YMCA in the country is very much in a rebuilding mode, for sure.
We certainly have stabilized ourselves. So we’re hopeful that, with people getting the vaccine and improvements and statistics, ultimately we can slowly kind of build ourselves back. … I don’t have a crystal ball, but I think it’s a 12- to 18- to 24-month rebuild. …
Q. In terms of revenue loss, what range is that?
I think we’ve lost about $40 million of revenue, at least initially. I have a sense that we are again slowly building that back.

In brief:

Bojangles unwrapped: The Bojangles in Midtown has removed its Panthers-colored vinyl wrapping, after the city said the wrapping violated the city’s sign ordinance. The blue-and-black vinyl was removed “to comply with local signage regulations,” WBTV reported. The Ledger reported last month that code enforcement considered the wrapping illegal.
Hedge fund offers to buy N.C. papers: Hedge fund Alden Global Capital made an offer to buy newspaper chain Lee Enterprises, which owns 90 papers, including eight in North Carolina. The N.C. papers include the Greensboro News and Record, the Winston-Salem Journal, the Hickory Daily Record, the Concord Independent-Tribune, the Mooresville Tribune and the Statesville Record and Landmark. (New York Times)
Record price for Lowe’s tower: The 358,000 s.f. Lowe’s Design Center Tower sold last week for $318M, or $889 per square foot, the Charlotte Business Journal reported. The buyer is a company affiliated with Apollo Global Management. The price shatters the previous per-foot record for a Charlotte office tower, held by The RailYard, which sold for $612 per square foot last year. The Ledger reported Nov. 3 that a source familiar with the deal said it was “very close to $900 per square foot,” which implied a “total sales price of around $320M.”
Wells vax rules: Wells Fargo will require employees to be vaccinated or to test regularly for Covid, according to an internal memo sent last week. Vaccinated workers are supposed to upload proof of vaccination by the end of this week, as the bank prepares to return to the office next year. Wells is one of Charlotte’s largest employers. (Reuters)
High school sports governance: Gov. Roy Cooper signed a bill into law that gives the State Board of Education a greater role in overseeing high school sports, in conjunction with the N.C. High School Athletic Association. (Observer)
Washington drops mask mandate: Washington, D.C., ended its indoor mask mandate, saying that Covid numbers had fallen. The city said it’s shifting to “risk-based guidance” that takes into account a person’s individual risk and vaccination status. “We’re shifting the government’s response to providing you this risk-based information and recommending layering strategies as the best way to protect yourself and the community,” Washington’s mayor said. Atlanta also dropped its mask mandate this month. (WTOP)
Carmel’s golf dispute with major leaguer: Carmel Country Club has sued San Diego Padres baseball player Wil Myers, saying he and his wife owe $64,000 in initiation fees. Myers has countersued for more than $150,000 in damages because he says he “found it almost impossible to find a tee time and frequently could not even use the driving range.” (Observer)
UDO summary released: Is the city’s 608-page proposed Unified Development Ordinance too much for you to handle? If so, the planning department last week released a 26-page summary that’s written in plain English. The ordinance, scheduled for a vote next summer, overhauls and combines Charlotte’s rules for development.
Commemorative NFT Panthers ticket: Fans attending the Dec. 12 Carolina Panthers home game against the Atlanta Falcons will be eligible to “receive complimentary virtual commemorative tickets in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs),” the NFL said. Fans receiving their tickets via the NFL Ticketing Network (Ticketmaster, StubHub, or SeatGeek) can “access the virtual commemorative ticket through an email that they will receive postgame, and then be able to manage the NFT in a dedicated NFL NFT marketplace powered by Ticketmaster.” (NFL)
Celebrity spotting: Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis were supposedly spotted over the weekend at Olde Mecklenburg Brewery and walking in Charlotte’s Providence Plantation neighborhood, according to inconclusive photos posted on social media. (Charlotte Paparazzi on Twitter)

Crossword solution: The answers to Saturday’s crossword can be found here and at The Ledger’s Crosswords page.

Taking stock

Unless you are a day trader, checking your stocks daily is unhealthy. So how about weekly? How local stocks of note fared last week (through Friday’s close), and year to date:

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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Contributing photographer/videographer: Kevin Young, The 5 and 2 Project

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