Superintendent Crystal Hill and her staff say they’re working on a five-year plan for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools that includes 70 strategies and a long-term spending plan to support them.
“The financial plan is new this year and accompanies the strategic plan,” Chief Strategy Officer Beth Thompson told the school board Tuesday. “It allows us to plan and pace our spending over the term of the strategic plan.”
The work is taking more time than initially planned. Hill’s budget for the coming year and her strategies for the next five years had been scheduled for Tuesday. Officials now say the budget will be presented April 9, followed by the strategic plan on April 23.
On Tuesday, Thompson offered an overview of key points emerging as staff works with employees, parents, students and other community members to shape a vision for the next five years. They include:
- Improving compensation and support to address teacher shortages. The presentation mentions housing support for teachers, but Thompson gave no details.
- Modernizing computer systems for finance, human resources and student information. “These are critical systems and imperative investments that will require massive changes internally,” Thompson said.
- Exploring ways to use artificial intelligence to serve students and streamline employees’ work.
- Replacing laptops and tablets used by students and staff. Thompson said warranties are expiring for devices bought during the pandemic, when CMS scrambled to make sure every student and teacher could work from home.
- Doing more to engage community partners and support parents.
Thompson told the board the staff has drafted 70 strategies to cover all key areas and is running them by a “think tank” that met to discuss the planning process in January.
Board Chair Stephanie Sneed warned the staff not to overcomplicate things.
“I think it should be very simplistic, because then we have the buy-in from the public,” she said. People should be able to look at the plan and understand what’s being done to meet each of the board’s academic goals, she said.
