Tagged: Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools

CMS superintendent Heath Morrison recently presented the budget for the upcoming school year. And fiscal challenges exist for all of CMS’ funding sources: county, state and federal. But despite those hurdles, Dr. Morrison says that the school district will continue pushing for success for all students. Under his leadership he plans to personalize education for each student and more fully embrace the diverse cultures of the student population. A conversation with Superintendent Morrison, when Charlotte Talks.

The push for high-performing college graduates and non-teachers from other professions to enter the classroom has reached an all-time high in the past few years. Proponents of “alternative entry” see it as a fast way to send motivated, knowledgeable instructors into schools—particularly high needs schools and subjects like math and science—but their inexperience and high turnover rate has drawn fire from critics.

The buses have been making their trial runs around the city, hundreds of new teachers have been hired, the pencils, paper and notebooks have been purchased. That's right, it's back to school time at Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools! We'll hear from a trio of journalists about the issues facing CMS as we head into the first day of school next week. Join us for a conversation about the leadership of new Superintendent Heath Morrison, the reaction to test scores around the district and how school officials are planning to improve them, and much more.

Charlotte Mecklenburg School teachers headed back to work Thursday to start preparing for students' arrival on August 27.  The district doesn't expect to be scrambling to hire teachers as the school year starts like in past years.  CMS Auxiliary Services Director Kathryn Block says CMS has a lot of hiring out the way and is in good shape at this point.  The district has filled nearly 99 percent of teaching positions. 

"It's not about putting a body in the seat.  It is about the quality of the teachers we're putting in our classrooms," says Block.

Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools has been trying to get its best teachers and principals in the most struggling schools through an initiative called strategic staffing. The schools have made big gains, but they're still far from where the district expected them to be at this point. Several school board members voiced frustration about that at Wednesday night's meeting.

Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools has released student end of year test scores for all of its schools, except two. West Charlotte and Harding high schools didn't have enough students taking the tests to post official scores for those schools. The state requires a school to test 95 percent of students in a course. Last night, school board members asked what happened.

Superintendent Heath Morrison questioned whether leaders at West Charlotte tried hard enough to get students to take them. But at Harding he said it was a different case.