Education

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board voted Tuesday to scale back the size of three new high schools that are part of a 2017 bond package. And CMS staff says there will still be a surplus of more than 4,000 high school seats when those new schools open.

This week Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools says it will provide details on cost overruns and changes to school bond projects – and will start laying the groundwork for a 2023 bond.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said fifth-graders got the questions about sexual orientation and gender identity, but a CMS official says fifth-graders only took the school climate survey without those questions.

Some Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools parents and teachers say they're concerned about a mandatory survey being given in class that asks students in grades 6-12 to list their sexual orientation and gender identity.

A growing number of North Carolina’s charter schools are setting aside seats for disadvantaged students in their fiercely competitive admission lotteries. It’s part of a $37 million push to make those schools more diverse.

If you think of public preschool as free child care for the poor, you’re behind the times … at least in Mecklenburg County.

The county has opened registration for next year’s Meck Pre-K classes, and some families making six-figure incomes are eligible for the free program.

What started about a year ago as a push for safer schools has turned into a war of words between Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and Centegix, a company that sold the district a panic-alarm system. Caught in the middle are Mecklenburg taxpayers, students and CMS employees.

For the past two years, tension between the town of Matthews and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has threatened to upend the way new schools are built in Mecklenburg County. Those tensions were laid to rest this week with back-to-back votes in Matthews and Charlotte.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Earnest Winston said Tuesday he's severing the district’s relationship with a company that sold a school panic-alarm system and that he'll try to get the district’s money back.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is scaling back on the size of new high schools it promised to build during the 2017 bond campaign, and district officials aren't explaining the change.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board agreed in November to create a position for a new, independent officer to monitor the superintendent and other top staff. But after almost three hours of discussion Tuesday  the board isn’t much closer to hiring that person.