Members of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education grilled district leaders about the district’s proposed magnet overhaul plan, expressing particular concern about the district’s efforts to collect community feedback.
The concerns raised the possibility that CMS could pump the brakes on the overhaul to collect more feedback, which Superintendent Crystal Hill said could potentially delay any implementation from the 2027-28 school year to 2028-29.
As part of the district’s community engagement, CMS and outside firm Research Triangle Institute held 126 community engagement sessions over several weeks, spread over each of the district’s comprehensive high schools. Each of those was open to anyone from across the county.
But at Tuesday’s meeting, some board members expressed frustration after realizing that no demographic information was collected from those attendees. They said that made it impossible to tell where in the county attendees live, and impossible to tell if the whole county was represented in the in-person engagement efforts.
“I’m real concerned about this because that means we don’t have any measure of where we may be deficient in reaching people,” Board Chair Stephanie Sneedsaid. “We don't have their home location. We don't have their school location. We just have where they showed up.”
Others agreed. Board member Shamaiye Haynes said she wanted to see a more comprehensive data report, including responses to surveys the district sent out.
“That information would have been helpful for us tonight because it’s very difficult for us to make a decision when we don't have all of the information to know who responded in our community,” she said.
The proposed magnet overhaul aims to streamline CMS’ choice options, reducing the number of magnet themes from 16 to six. It was an outgrowth of the district’s comprehensive review, after the board reviewed enrollment and lottery data in 2024 to weigh potential programming changes. At Tuesday’s meeting, board members were reviewing Hill’s final recommendation for the changes. There will be a public hearing May 12, and the board is slated to vote May 28.
Hill apologized to the board, saying she and her team were unaware the board wanted that information captured.
“I believe that we have offered numerous opportunities for engagement, specifically direct communication with those families that may be impacted, but I certainly understand the board's trepidation,” Hill said. “So, what we certainly could do is pause, but as shared earlier with the board that this information has to be locked and ready to go because while it does not impact this coming school year, this plan impacts the '27-'28 school year. And so all of our choice programs have to be locked and ready to go no later than mid-August as we prepare for choice season, which of course begins in the fall.”
CMS officials said they chose to host sessions at all high schools because all families end up at high schools, so they believed that would touch all communities. They said they also conducted opportunities for online feedback and contacted impacted families directly.
Board members signaled that they’d want to see RTI’s final report on engagement to see what the collected data looks like.
But it wasn’t the only line of questioning — board members also had questions about the district’s proposal to combine its International Baccalaureate and Learning Immersion/Talent Development. They appeared skeptical about the implementation and the pathways available in each transportation zone, echoing some concern expressed at engagement sessions. And board members also relayed some concerns from community members about a proposal to turn the district’s middle colleges into early colleges, something the board voted down in 2024.
Hill’s recommendation
The board will vote on several programmatic changes that Hill is proposing, including eliminating arts programs from Crestdale Middle School, Greenway Park Elementary School and Long Creek Elementary School; eliminating and shuffling around IB and LI/TD programs to create the joint theme; and turning middle colleges into early colleges.
There are other operational changes proposed, like transportation. Those don’t require a board vote. Hill made several changes to these parts of the plan based on community feedback.
The full recommendation and proposed changes to transportation are here.
The district made changes to its plans for world languages based on concerns from families, who expressed concern that while world language programs would be available in each transportation zone, not every specific language was available.
The final recommendation makes clear that Japanese will continue as a district-wide option, with transportation available throughout the district.
It also ensures the South Academy of International Language remains available to families in the green transportation zone — the original proposal had removed it, prompting concern from green zone families whose students take certain languages like Chinese and German that are only available at that school.
