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Saturday, May 19, 2018

Davidson Board discussing joining Municipal Charter School bill on Tuesday

Davidson's Board has the possibility of requesting town inclusion on H514 on its agenda this coming Tuesday.

H514 has created a lot of swirl in Mecklenburg County in recent weeks as the bill has gained traction.  Originally a bill that would allow Matthews and Mint Hill to start municipal charter schools, both Cornelius and Huntersville asked to be added to the bill a couple of weeks ago.  Those moves garnered a response from CMS which held a public meeting last week in North Mecklenburg to discuss the issue.  The agenda item for Davidson's Tuesday meeting includes a copy of the resolution Cornelius passed asking to be added.

According to the staff memo included with the agenda item...

It is recommended that, should the town board want to ask our legislators to add Davidson to this bill, that the town board take action to do that at this May 22nd board meeting, so that the state legislature could potentially approve it in this current short legislative session. Otherwise, if the town wanted to ask for this authority, and it was not considered at this short legislative session, the next opportunity would be the long legislative session starting in January 2019.

This means that if you as a citizen want your input heard on this issue, the only opportunity (unless the Board adds a public comment section for the Tuesday meeting) would be to email the Board at Board@townofdavidson.org before the meeting.

It will be interesting to see how the Board looks at this one.

On the one hand, Davidson residents already have proximity to two excellent charter schools in Community School  of Davidson and Pine Lake Prep.  Also, Davidson Elementary is undergoing a conversion to a K-8 school.  On the other hand, the explosive growth on the horizon with the already underway development in new large neighborhoods like Westbranch and Davidson East as well as numerous infill projects, could lead to overcrowding in the near future.  With no CMS bond money coming to the area in the next several years, municipal charters could be an option to relieve that.  However, on the other hand executing on that takes money and Davidson already has plans in the works for other projects that will jack up the tax bills of residents.  Adding a school would be a hefty expense the Town likely couldn't afford even if it did have permission to do so.  Finally, on the other hand the Town is currently negotiating with CMS to use the old Davidson IB building as Town and CMS office space.  Asking to be added to a bill that CMS opposes would be counterproductive to those goals.

As you can see this one is complicated - having more "hands" than seems manageable to decide in a single Board meeting.

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