The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education’s District 1 covers a broad swath of the county, including schools in the affluent suburbs of Cornelius and Davidson, and Title I schools such as River Oaks Academy in the Mountain Island Lake area.
Board member Melissa Easley, who represents the area, is facing two challengers this year. It's shaping up to be a hard-fought race, one that's pulled in more money than usual for a school board race and stirred up strong emotions on issues spanning everything from the Charlie Kirk assassination to how CMS should discipline kids and teach the basics.
The rules of traditional party politics don’t always apply to officially nonpartisan school board races. Still, Easley says she was hurt that the Mecklenburg County Democrats chose to endorse her opponent, Charlitta Hatch.
Easley says she’s been told the decision stemmed from concerns about her fundraising. Still, she acknowledges she recently stirred controversy with a post about murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk that drew national attention. She also has a track record of voting in the minority against the board consensus, like when she voted against last year’s budget because she felt the board needed to ask for more money from Mecklenburg County.
“It is what it is,” Easley said. “You know, I stand by every vote that I made. I believed that at the time, I had every possible information that I could have, and I made the best decision possible.”
Hatch, meanwhile, has had no problem raising the funds — campaign finance records show she’s raised nearly $45,000 compared to Easley’s $1,700, with donations coming from more than 300 individuals. That’s higher than a typical school board race, by a big margin. Hatch credited the community connections she’s made through her work in the nonprofit space, her sorority and elsewhere.
“Really, I think it's a testament to who I am in the community,” Hatch said. “Even if I'm new to some of you, I'm not new to a lot of other folks.”
Republican-backed candidate enters the race
The Republican-backed candidate, Bill Fountain, has put $20,000 of his own money in the race. He believes the presence of two Democrats can give him an opening to contrast his more conservative values. All of that has made this a race to watch, with an incumbent who’s at times ruffled feathers facing a well-funded challenger and a conservative pushing change.
Fountain is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel with private sector experience who eventually sought to retire in North Carolina. When he got here, he changed course, got his teaching license and taught for 10 years, first at CMS and then at a Catholic school in Huntersville. He said he started to become concerned about schools during the pandemic.
“It became very clear to me that CMS was putting, I think, social and political agenda ahead of academic excellence,” Fountain said.
He points to reports that more than 20% of CMS grads in 2024 graduated with a GPA less than a 2.0. While CMS says its graduates show that success comes in a variety ways, Fountain says it’s an example of lowered standards. He also believes CMS tolerates too many conduct code violations and should focus on teaching children more about character and resilience.
“And then the other thing I thought was that they're pushing, I guess they call it social-emotional learning, was tending toward feelings and group identities, which were steering children, I think, toward a victimhood mindset,” Fountain said. “I said, hey, we need to do something different.”
Hatch is the city of Charlotte’s chief data and analytics officer, the founder of a nonprofit and the author of three children’s books. She’s a doctoral candidate at UNC Charlotte who’s been studying why families don’t choose CMS. She’s also a generational CMS grad — her parents both went to CMS schools and she’s sending her two children to CMS as well. She says closing achievement gaps is a top priority.
“When you think about District 1 specifically, we have A schools and we have F schools,” Hatch said. “And so we’ll talk about achievement gaps, but really we need to reframe it to opportunity gaps and think about what opportunities are some students provided that others are not?”
One way to close those gaps could be filling teacher vacancies and improving teacher pay. She called for leveraging public-private partnerships to support teachers, like what CMS has done through its affordable housing initiatives. She plans to use her background in data and technology to analyze why certain schools are struggling, look for trends in teacher vacancies and predict funding needs.
Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA
Easley’s a 14-year teaching veteran who taught in CMS for 10 years. She founded the group North Carolina Teachers United. And she was the first ever open member of the LGBTQ community elected to the school board — she has previously said she’s bisexual. And she’s been outspoken about harassment she’s faced on the board, including from followers of Kirk’s Turning Point USA.
That inspired her controversial September post about Kirk, in which she denounced political violence but said she wouldn’t mourn him because of his views of the LGBTQ community. She told WFAE that in the past, critics have called social services on her family, left threatening messages and approached her children. Still, she says she denounces what happened to Kirk, and her post was never meant to imply otherwise.
“This isn't about celebrating,” Easley said. “This isn't about anything like that. It's about my truth. And the whole Turning Point does not accept me. And so while I say that, you know, it never should have happened and I am devastated for his family.”
Easley cites her experience as a parent, a teacher and a board member. She says teacher retention and recruitment and communication are the biggest issues facing CMS. She praised the district’s housing initiatives and improved communications between the district and the media, as evidenced by more positive headlines in recent years. She touted her own efforts to communicate with families, like through her newsletter.
“Are we perfect? No, by all means, no,” Easley said. “We still have a lot of work to do. But once again, we're moving in the right direction and I really want to continue to make it to that next level.”
Consultant sends cease-and-desist letter
The race has also spurred an unusually personal rivalry. Last spring, Easley was one of three board members who voted against increasing the contract of educational consulting firm SYDKIMYL. She questioned the firm’s efficacy and connections to Raki McGregor, then a close advisor to Superintendent Crystal Hill.
SYDKIMYL is owned by Raki’s wife, Kimberly McGregor. The McGregors and CMS have defended SYDKIMYL by pointing to recent academic gains across 10 of the 12 schools where they’ve worked. But Raki McGregor went on to publicly support Hatch, which prompted questions of whether he was seeking political payback. McGregor has denied this. Hatch, for her part, takes exception to any notion that McGregor played a role in her decision to run.
“My own husband couldn't even tell me to do something like this or even suggest it, and I do it,” Hatch said. “Because the first thing I would do if he said that to me was like, you do it yourself. I'm not your secretary. So I find it completely offensive, misogynistic, patriarchal, and a little bit racist.”
Asked if she had any second thoughts about her vote, Easley said she couldn’t comment due to legal concerns.
Since then, the McGregors confirmed they sent cease and desist letters to both Easley and Toni Emehel, a candidate running in District 6, regarding what they saw as “false and defamatory statements” about them and their companies on the campaign trail. They say the actions “were taken to protect the McGregors and their business’ longstanding reputations.”
