All nine of the CMS Board Members met together at a retreat at the leadership academy on January 20th and 21st. The leadership academy is at Vance High School, near WT Harris Drive in Charlotte. Two new elected leaders and one appointed leader are now part of this board of education. Chairperson Ericka Ellis-Stewart, Vice-Chairperson Mary McCray and District 6 Appointee Reverend Amelia Stenson-Wesley are all new members of this board. The longest serving member is District 4 Representative Reverend Tom Tate. Tate has been on the board for just over six years. Five members of the board, At-Large Member, Tim Morgan, District 5 Representative Eric Davis, District 3 Representative Joyce Waddell, District 1 Representative Rhonda Lennon and District 2 Representative Richard McElrath, were all elected in 2009.
Mary Kendrick was the facilitator for this weekend retreat. Kendrick was able to help the board talk out some of their differences. The board retreat started at 9 am and lasted until 5 pm on Friday, the 20th. Saturday the retreat went from 9 am until just after noon. The leadership academy proved to be a great venue for the board to meet off camera and gel a little better.
Interim superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh is asking the board for raises for the CMS teachers. They have not had raises in four years. At-Large Member, Tim Morgan would like to see other staff besides teachers also get raises. He would like to see the focus not be solely on the teachers. Morgan would also like to see parental and community involvement improve. He would like to have more organized partnerships with parents, community groups and CMS. Morgan would also like to see the board have goals if the board is not going to stay with the Theory of Action.
Mary Kendrick went over the different phases new groups can have. Here are the phases in order: Form, storm, norm, perform and adjourn. Morgan is concerned with how this board went quickly from the ‘form’ stage into ‘storm’. Morgan stated that this is mistrust among board members. Morgan is also concerned that the lack of information among board members has led to mistrust. District 1 Representative Rhonda Lennon also expressed concerns over lack of collaboration, shutting down communications and decisions being made behind closed doors. Lennon stated, “Let’s be honest about what’s been going on”. Morgan, Lennon and District 5 Representative Eric Davis expressed concerns over the direction of the board. Davis would like more feedback from other board members. Currently the board members are not listening to each other well enough. The board members are not discussing issues with each other in depth.
The board had a working lunch. Over the lunch time, the board listed what success means to them. At-Large Member Tim Morgan stated that success to him is success is the students and not the board. Morgan would like to see maximum academic achievement for every student at every school. The challenges that CMS faces are communication, trust among board members, time, interactions, decisions and actions of board members. Morgan stated that the traits that CMS must foster are strong families. He would like to see more success come from families. At least one adult, for example a Boy-Scout leader or grandparent needs to be the support system for a student. All students need a support system, according to Morgan.
District 1 Representative also express that every board member should be able to express their views, have input and receive feedback from their peers(on the board). Lennon listed a major board challenge as the public perception of
On Friday afternoon, the board was able to meet with Jim Huge from ProAct and discuss more details on what type of superintendent this board would like to hire. Mr. Huge wanted to have the board talk about how much of a change agent the board wants in the new superintendent. He went around the room and asked each member to rate their belief in a superintendent being an agent of change. On Huge’s scale, 1 is very little change and 5 is the most amount of change coming from a superintendent. Each of the nine board members verbally stated that they want a 5 from the new superintendent. There was some question later in the day as to whether or not all nine members actually want that much change in the new superintendent. On Friday, the board discussed the legislative agenda of Project LIFT. District 4 Member Reverend Tom Tate expressed concern that the legislative agenda of the project does not represent CMS. At-Large Member, Tim Morgan reminded all that the board had unanimously stated that they wanted a 5 out of their new superintendent. Morgan went on to state this is what change looks like. Morgan would also like to see better tracking of success in areas of education and higher education along with the other superintendent responsibilities.
Also on Friday afternoon, the board took a fresh look at the Theory of Action. All 9 board members did agree to continue with the current Theory of Action with only minor changes. At-Large Member, Tim Morgan would like to see the board continue with the high standards, effective teachers along with staff and principals in the schools.
The highlight of the weekend was the presentation from Denise Watts, Stick Williams and several other board members of Project LIFT. There was some question if this board would wholeheartedly support this new project. Project LIFT is a new community partnership that has already raised $55 million to help West Charlotte High School and the feeder schools for West Charlotte. This effort is aimed at pairing students who are not doing well in school with community partners to give wrap around services for those most in need in this corridor of Charlotte. Most board members did eventually decide to agree with the goals of Project LIFT.