By Ann Doss Helms
ahelms@charlotteobserver.com

Seven civil-rights complaints against Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools cover a wide range of issues, from political decisions about which schools would close in 2011 to allegations that disadvantaged students are "tracked" into less-challenging classes.

The Observer received copies of the complaints, with names and identifying information deleted, through a Freedom of Information Act request. The U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights recently notified CMS that it will investigate.

The office has asked CMS to provide by Jan. 7 student assignment policies, enrollment data and a list of all staff and consultants involved in 2011-12 student assignment changes.

"We will cooperate with OCR's request," Superintendent Peter Gorman told the Observer in an e-mail. "There was no discrimination or other wrongdoing."

The complaints involve a Nov. 9 vote to close schools, reassign students and change academic programs. Officials said closings were based on low enrollment and/or academic problems, and said the prospect of severe budget cuts forced CMS to make changes.

Four of the complaints say the projected saving is less than 1 percent of CMS's budget, and the schools targeted to close are in "a geographical region that includes a very high percentage of economically disadvantaged Hispanic and African American children."

"Schools in more affluent neighborhoods were taken off the list during various stages and schools that had political influence were given priority over others," say the four complaints, which contain large passages of identical wording. "Adjusting boundaries would have increased the utilization at all schools. Two new high schools in more affluent areas were opened this year and now, all of a sudden, it has become necessary to close one in (a) lower socioeconomic neighborhood."

Those complaints focus on the decision to close Waddell High, a high-poverty school in southwest Charlotte, and move most of the students to Harding, which is now a magnet school. They cite a Nov. 7 e-mail from school board member Trent Merchant urging his colleagues to delay a vote on that move and come up with a better plan.

Among the issues raised in those complaints:

Harding will become a high-poverty neighborhood school, where the remaining International Baccalaureate magnet students are outnumbered 3-1 by struggling students.

CMS will forfeit federal grant money that had been awarded to improve Waddell.

Students are being forced to leave Waddell, which was built in 2001, for Harding's 1961 campus (some buildings are newer). "They are giving my son's school building to an affluent and politically connected, K-8 Language Magnet School. I do not feel that this is equitable," all four complaints say.

CMS plans to use the Waddell building to house Smith Language Academy.

The complaints ask the Civil Rights Office to block the closing of Waddell and force CMS to devise new plans "that spread the negative impact across the entire Charlotte Mecklenburg School District, not just one area / social economic class of people."

Two other nearly identical complaints say the Nov. 9 vote is just the latest example of CMS discrimination, which includes "systematically mislabeling & educationally tracking (poor and minority) students to inferior less challenging courses" and "threatening and/or banning parents" who complain.

Those complaints name an individual, whose name has been deleted, saying he has used "his educational staff to serve as actors in abuse of process proceedings." They ask that CMS's federal funding and accreditation be revoked.

One other complaint, filed before the November vote, contains few specifics.

The Education Department has consolidated the complaints. Officials note that the decision to investigate does not mean they've concluded that CMS did anything wrong.

If investigators conclude that CMS did violate civil rights laws, they will try to negotiate a solution.

In a worst-case scenario, violations that can't be resolved could lead to the loss of federal money or a Justice Department investigation.

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