Come Monday, summer vacation will truly be over. That’s when Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Union County and about three-quarters of North Carolina’s public school districts bring students back to class.
For commuters, that means it’s time to plan some extra drive time. Union County expects about 41,500 students, while CMS plans for about 141,000
CMS is also opening two new schools in south Charlotte: Knights View Elementary, across the street from Ardrey Kell High, and Ballantyne Ridge High, just north of the I-485/Johnston Road interchange.
“Of course when you run into 141,000 people, 840-plus buses out on the road, all on one day, it is going to take a considerable amount of time for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg community to get used to all this new traffic,” Chief Operations Officer Tim Ivey said. “We would ask that you please be patient, alert and look out.”
Most of the other districts in the Charlotte region defied North Carolina’s school calendar law and opened earlier this month. They’re among 29 so-called scofflaw districts that have decided it’s more important to end the first semester before winter break than to follow the law.
CMS held a back-to-school news briefing this week at the new Knights View school. Here are some of the highlights.
Teacher vacancies
As of Tuesday, CMS had 293 teacher jobs left to fill, a vacancy rate of about 3%. That’s significantly better than the 516 vacancies the district had at this time last year.
Nancy Brightwell, who’s in charge of human resources, said that includes 56 unfilled jobs for special education teachers, as well as some jobs designated for highly skilled teachers who coach colleagues and/or work with multiple classes. She said schools will cover gaps by temporarily combining classes or using North Carolina Virtual Public School instruction.
“We would never have a situation where we didn’t have a qualified adult for a given classroom,” Brightwell said.
She said CMS was able to reduce the number of unfilled spots by reassigning people whose jobs had been funded through federal COVID-19 relief money. That money ran out this year, and CMS reassigned some teachers and put some non-certified staff “on the pathway to becoming teachers.”
Bus drivers vacancies
CMS will have about 840 buses on the road, but still needs 38 drivers — down from 82 driver vacancies just before schools opened in 2023.
CMS used to run more than 1,000 buses, but adopted a controversial “express bus” plan to cope with ongoing driver shortages. That plan requires students enrolled in high school magnet programs to catch the bus at other schools, rather than having neighborhood stops. It has led to enrollment slumps at most of those programs.
The express bus program continues this year. Hill said the only alternative would be expecting most drivers to run two or three routes each morning and afternoon — which led to late buses across the district before the express plan was adopted.
She said there are drivers in the pipeline. CMS hopes that all spots will be filled by Thanksgiving.
“And we also utilize any other staff that have a bus license. So it’s not ideal, but our executive director, Adam Johnson, runs several stops if necessary until we’re able to onboard,” she said.
Safety and scanners
CMS started installing walk-through scanners in 2022 after a surge of guns turned up in schools. The scanners are now in all middle, high and K-8 schools, and the number of guns coming in has dropped dramatically.
But Superintendent Hill says harmless items like three-ring binders, rolling book bags and backpacks with metal frames also trigger the alarm. CMS is banning those items this year.
“Sometimes with our scanners we were getting false positives ... it was slowing down the process,” Hill said.
Hill says families were notified at the end of last school year so they could shop accordingly.
Union County will roll out walk-through scanners at athletic events, starting with varsity football.
Connecting with CMS
Hill is reminding parents to download the ParentSquare app to get messages from CMS and schools, and to complete opt-in forms for health and dental screenings. Students whose parents don’t complete the forms can’t get the screenings because of the Parents Bill of Rights the General Assembly approved last year — which changed such screenings from an opt-out to an opt-in default.
CMS is also offering a new Family Academy series of workshops to help families support their kids in school.
The district is also looking for community groups and individual volunteers.
“We’re specifically in need of 250 volunteers to tutor kindergarten, first- and second-grade students,” said Chief Strategy Officer Beth Thompson. “There are options for tutors to work with students virtually or in person. All you need is one hour a week and a willing and committee spirit. We’ll teach you the rest.”
Click here for more information or email partnerships@cms.k12.nc.us or volunteers@cms.k12.nc.us.
