CHARLOTTE - Parents of children at four poor-performing high schools are being asked to sign a pledge that they will do their part to improve achievement by monitoring homework, encouraging good behavior and getting their children to school on time.

The schools are among 17 high schools across the state that failed to improve enough last year to meet the expectations of a Wake County judge who threatened sanctions against them unless more students passed end-of-course tests.

"We're looking for a commitment, and we're looking for [parents] joining the team with us," Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Peter Gorman said.

Some parents had no problem with the contract, which is similar to others at schools in the region including Charlotte-Mecklenburg elementary and middle schools.

But others who attended a meeting last week felt the schools -- which serve mainly low-income black and Hispanic students -- were being unfairly singled out.

Rosalind Reid, who said her daughter earns high grades in West Charlotte's rigorous International Baccalaureate program, found it offensive that the district was setting the level for family involvement.

"The contract, to me, is very condescending," she said. "It reads as if CMS is the parent and the parents at West Charlotte are the children."

But West Charlotte PTSA President Leslie Davis said she was willing to sign the agreement.

"I think Dr. Gorman is just asking the parents to step up to the plate," she said. "Everything he's asking me to do, I'm already doing."

The district's high school administrator, Ann Clark, plans to encourage all of the district's high schools to start using contracts to remind parents of their role in academic achievement.