By Ann Doss Helms
ahelms@charlotteobserver.com

Local and state NAACP leaders vowed Monday there will be more protests and civil disobedience at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board meeting next week, and announced a push to get an independent audit of the district's budget.

The Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, asked a crowd of about 200 to point at two people arrested at a CMS forum last week and chant, 'Next time you will not be alone!'"

The crowd stood, cheered and applauded as Barber and the Rev. Kojo Nantambu, president of the local NAACP branch, railed against CMS leaders for encouraging resegregation of schools and planning to close schools that serve mostly poor and minority students.

Barber has been arrested more than once at sit-ins and protests involving plans to dismantle a diversity-based student assignment plan in Wake County. Nantambu was arrested last week while protesting the CMS board's decision to cut short public comments on school closings.

Monday's follow-up meeting at Little Rock AME Zion Church drew a crowd that included CMS board members Joyce Waddell and Richard McElrath, Mecklenburg County commissioner Vilma Leake and commissioners' chair Jennifer Roberts.

Nantambu had the crowd standing and cheering as he accused Superintendent Peter Gorman of promoting segregation and exaggerating the district's budget problems. Gorman says proposals to close eight schools are driven by the likelihood of large budget cuts in 2011-12.

Nantambu said he is going to demand an independent audit of the CMS budget, and said that "these people have a diabolical plan, a national plan to close all the inner-city schools."

Barber put the proposed closings in the context of long-standing efforts to fight school integration, including a federal court decision that led to the end of court-ordered desegregation in CMS and the launch of a neighborhood-based assignment plan in 2002.

"Neighborhood schools for the suburbs and wealthy communities meant private schools with public dollars," Barber said.

In black neighborhoods, he said, it brought high-poverty, racially isolated schools

"When you make a mess, then you want to punish the schoolchildren in the inner city," he said.

Barber said Nantambu and Hans Plotseneder, a West Mecklenburg High School teacher who was arrested after refusing to leave the meeting chamber last week, broke the law to protest a greater violation that occurred when the school board cut short speakers' time and closed the meeting before 19 people had a chance to say anything.

Board Chair Eric Davis has said those 19 will be invited to a special session before next week's meeting to make their comments. The board meets at 6 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Government Center for a session that will include final staff recommendations for closings and other changes to schools.

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