Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools the public school system for Mecklenburg County, it is the second-largest school district in North Carolina and the eighteenth-largest in the nation, with over 147,000 students enrolled.

Mecklenburg County is deep blue, with a fully Democrat board of county  commissioners, it went 67% for Biden.

So let us look at how they manage their school system.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools auction for almost 46,000 clear backpacks launched Friday

Charlotte-Mecklenburg School began its public auction of almost 46,000 clear backpacks Friday morning.

Starting bid for the lot of 45,980 is $50,000 with $1,000 increments accepted.

District documents from June listed the backpacks as surplus property.

CMS spent nearly $442,000 for about 46,000 clear backpacks in November, WBTV previously reported. 

In March, CMS officials told parents in an email that they discovered most backpacks contained a warning tag required by Proposition 65 for California residents. They immediately paused the rollout of the bags.

District leaders initially ordered these clear backpacks for security reasons after incidents of guns and other weapons being found in backpacks.

At least 30 guns were found on CMS campuses during the 2021-22 school year.

The Proposition 65 warning is the biggest bunch of bullshit ever.  It is supposed to warn you that a product contains a chemical that is a known carcinogen.  Except there is no standard for dosage, exposure, etc., to be exempt in the labeling.  So just about every product you buy has a Prop 65 warning on it.  Only people who have no understand of risk assessment would panic over a Prop 65 warning on a backpack.

Coincidentally, the same county that panicked over Prop 65 warnings on backpacks also was one of the last counties to hang onto mask mandates, and still had masking in schools after that.

But that is a minor point.

Let’s focus on the big issue.

CMS went to clear backpacks because students were found with guns in their backpacks on school grounds.  What has CMS done about that?

What happens to students caught bringing guns to Mecklenburg County schools?

Authorities found 30 firearms on CMS campuses during the 2021-2022 school year, up from a previous high of 22 in 2018-2019. Most of those weapons were recovered in the first half of the year, causing a swift backlash. The Charlotte Observer last week reported that CMS’ gun problem is nothing new. Between 2010 and 2021, Mecklenburg County schools reported 323 firearm complaints filed against Mecklenburg County students younger than 18, by far the most of any North Carolina county in that span.

The school district and police have declined to describe this in detail. But state data gives some clues.

It shows that nearly one-third of school-based firearm complaints don’t go to court. Data obtained by The Observer from the Department of Public Safety show that 68% of these complaints ended up in juvenile court. Another 16% of cases were dismissed, while 16% of cases were diverted, typically meaning the kid was required to complete an action plan or community service instead of going to court.

On a per-student basis, Mecklenburg County schools were in the state’s top 10 of firearm offenses between 2010 and 2021, joined by only much smaller school districts, according to the state. After 23 guns were found in the first half of this school year, CMS ramped up up efforts to prevent guns from being carried on school grounds, adding body scanners and launching an anonymous reporting app.

Youth violence experts say that it’s important for school districts and state officials to work with people and organizations in the community to get the best results for such kids.

“You want to look at some of the outcomes like suspensions,” said Paul Smokowski, a violence-prevention researcher and founder of the North Carolina Youth Violence Prevention Center. “A suspension is a punitive discipline and it shows the level of problems that a school might be having. If they have more troubles they have to deal with, they often get more punitive.”

Smokowski said he’s seen decrease in problems when school districts and Juvenile Justice focus on “fostering community, fostering good connections with students and positive behavior.”

If that last part reminds you of something, it’s probably because it sounds a lot like what Broward County Schools did before Parkland.

CMS has the most problems with students bringing guns to school in the state.  They tackled that problem in inadequate punishment and diversionary programs that sent a message to students that bringing guns to school wasn’t a big deal.

They further responded with body scanners and then buying nearly half a million dollars worth of clear backpacks, that they didn’t give out because of the bullshit California Prop 65 warning label.

That is how Democrat monopolies run things.

They exacerbated a crime problem with soft of crime policies, applied a collective punishment with clear backpacks, did a terrible job of risk assessment, then pissed a bunch of money away.

I’ve never been so glad to have bought outside of Mecklenburg County.