A version of this story first appeared in WFAE Education Reporter James Farrell's weekly newsletter. Sign up here to get newsletters from WFAE straight to your inbox.
Before the storm rolled in this weekend, I drove up to the Graylyn Estate Hotel in Winston-Salem on Friday to sit in on part of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools board’s retreat. This is an annual, multi-day gathering that’s effectively a professional development getaway where the board also does some longer-term, bigger picture planning. It’s open to the public, though the CMS board often holds the retreat somewhere outside of Charlotte and doesn’t livestream it like it does its regular meetings.
Here’s what I learned — and it’s a lot. So buckle up, and read on for more details on the proposed magnet program overhaul I reported about on Friday.
Is 2026 the year of the Comprehensive Review?
The board had a lot to discuss – as we’ve reported, CMS is behind on completing its Comprehensive Review. This is supposed to be a major review and update of the district’s student assignment policies (i.e., where kids are assigned to go to school) and program offerings (like its magnet and school choice programs). Board policy says it’s supposed to be undertaken every four years.
But the last major comprehensive review was completed in 2017. And since then, multiple iterations of the board have struggled to complete the process.
You might recall that the board attempted to get this done last year. That board did make some progress, resulting in a flurry of student assignment changes affecting various magnet schools and a few overcrowded neighborhood schools. At the time, that was billed as Phase One of the Comprehensive Review, and district leaders had planned a deeper review for Phase Two for the spring. But the board requested more time, and it’s been lingering ever since.
A comprehensive review can be dicey. My predecessor Ann Doss Helms once wrote it’s “consistently one of the most controversial things any school board can do,” which makes sense — depending on the proposals, the board could be moving thousands of students from one school to another or drastically changing school programs.
At the retreat on Friday, Deputy Superintendent Melissa Balknight gave a similar warning to this latest iteration of the board, which includes four brand new members:
“This is going to be one of the hardest things you’re going to do,” she said. “Because when you draw attendance boundaries, you’re not going to make everybody happy. It doesn’t matter what you do, because it impacts people on so many different levels.”
A potential magnet overhaul
Before we go any further, it’s important to note that this is all preliminary. There’s no formal proposal before the board yet – but Friday’s presentation offered a glimpse into what kind of proposal CMS is constructing. Even if it gets approved, these changes wouldn’t be implemented until 2027-28, and administrators told me they wouldn’t impact any of the latest lottery results for this upcoming school year (more on that later).
One of the biggest changes could be a major overhaul of CMS magnet offerings, which would reduce the number of magnet themes from 16 to six, while expanding career and technical education programs to every high school in the district.
Balknight said the goal is to cut down on duplicative programs and consolidate resources around fewer, highly desirable “gold-standard” magnet programs that follow clear elementary-to-high-school paths. Balknight said that would shift the magnet lottery program’s focus from “school choice” to “program choice,” where families who choose to leave their home school do so in pursuit of a program that they want — not just because they want a different school.
“So program choice, so that the program is consistent no matter what transportation zone it is in, you will get a consistent core experience,” Balknight said. “Granted, schools have a different culture and climate, but the core experience of a STEM program, or a Montessori program, is the same.”
Balknight said the district is encouraging families who want a change in school to instead make use of the district’s transfer process — which allows families to apply for a transfer to any school they want, provided there are available seats and they provide their own transportation.
The six remaining magnet themes would include Visual and Performing Arts, Montessori, STEM, Early College, World Languages and a new theme that would combine the International Baccalaureate and Learning Immersion/Talent Development themes.
The proposed overhaul would also aim to disentangle career and technical education offerings from the school choice process — CMS says it plans to create a minimum of six CTE pathways available at every high school in the district.
As an example of the “less-is-more” logic behind the change, CMS is considering removing the program choice arts programs that are currently housed at Crestdale Middle School, Greenway Park Elementary School and Long Creek Elementary School.
Balknight noted those schools have smaller arts programs – nowhere near the full arts programs at its flagship arts schools: University Park Creative Arts elementary school, First Ward Creative Arts middle school and Northwest School of the Arts High School. The goal of cutting these smaller arts programs would be to consolidate resources and enrollment into this flagship, K-12 arts pathway that has no attendance boundaries and serves the whole county.
“We have an arts K-12 continuum with no attendance boundaries,” Balknight told the board. “And we are struggling to get the kids enrolled [in that] because why would I get on the bus if I could go to this one that's 10 minutes down the street from my house? But I only have two extra teachers at that school, and it's music and art. Is that the same as Northwest School of Arts…?”
Administrators have started to consider more specific changes that could eventually come before the board. But Superintendent Crystal Hill insisted those recommendations are not final and could change as discussions continue. Here’s what’s on the table to implement this consolidation around these six magnet offerings, with many schools no longer offering the option to use the choice lottery to enter into those programs:
- Arts: See above.
- Montessori: No major changes, but the board plans to rename the Secondary Montessori School (formerly Marie G. Davis K-8) to J.T. Williams Secondary Montessori.
- International Baccalaureate/Learning Immersion/Talent Development: The idea here is that the current LI/TD programs, known for their rigor, don’t continue beyond elementary school. Integrating them with more rigorous IB programming would address that and, CMS hopes, increase the number of students graduating with an IB diploma. Lots of changes are being explored here:
- Choice IB programs would no longer be offered at Albemarle Road or Ranson Middle Schools.
- Choice LI/TD programs would no longer be offered at Statesville Road or Tuckaseegee Elementary Schools.
- The choice IB programs at J.M. Alexander, Piedmont, Quail Hollow and Randolph Middle Schools would transition to this new, hybrid IB and LI/TD program.
- The new middle school that’s going into the former Dilworth Elementary school site would become a full magnet IB and LI/TD program.
- Elizabeth Traditional Elementary and Myers Park Traditional Elementary would become full magnet IB and LI/TD.
- The choice LI/TD programs at Charles H. Parker, Idlewild Elementary, Irwin Academic Center, Mallard Creek Elementary and Shamrock Gardens would transition to IB and LI/TD programs.
- World Languages: There are no changes planned at this time.
- STEM: Program choice STEM programs would no longer be available at Northeast Middle School, Walter G. Byers K-8 School, Whitewater Middle School and Wilson STEM Academy. The choice option for Computer Science STEM would no longer be available at Harding University HIgh School.
- Early College: CMS will again consider converting the school’s middle colleges (Cato, Harper, Levine and Merancas) to early colleges. These programs allow students to participate in college courses while completing high school requirements. Middle colleges start in 11th grade, while early colleges start in ninth grade. Hill recommended this change last year, but the last iteration of the school board voted down a version of this plan after community pushback. But Balknight said the demand for more early college seats is still there, and waitlists persist. She said they plan on improving their community engagement on the issue this time around.
Again, all preliminary. And it’s worth noting that Balknight said the goal isn’t to eliminate anything from these schools per se. Back to that arts example, Balknight noted that Crestdale would still have its additional arts teachers — but it would no longer be considered an “arts program” like the other magnets.
Other proposed changes
Outside the magnet program, administrators floated some other proposals for changes at the last day of the retreat on Saturday, held at the Charlotte government center due to weather.
The big-ticket item in these proposals, as reported by the Charlotte Ledger and in this slide show, would turn Elbert Edwin Waddell High School into a full, comprehensive high school. The facility has been a magnet program that includes the Virtual Academy and the PACE, which helps immigrant students learn English.
As part of the proposal, the Virtual Academy would move to the new Second Ward High School approved in the 2023 bond, which is also poised to replace the health program currently located at Hawthorne Academy. And as the Ledger reported, it’s likely that making Waddell a full-on high school again will come with other boundary changes at area high schools, particularly in south Charlotte – though there have been no specific proposals laying that out yet.
Another preliminary proposal would turn the Cochrane Collegiate Academy – currently a 6-12 school that houses the iMeck program – into a full 6-8 middle school with an attendance boundary.
