A four-member committee tasked with finding Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' next superintendent met for the first time Tuesday, starting what will be the district's search for its eighth permanent leader in a decade. Board member Anna London chairs the group, which includes Cynthia Stone, Dr. Monty Witherspoon and board Chair Gregory “Dee” Rankin. No hiring timeline has been set, and key questions about how the search will be run remain unresolved.
The committee agreed to largely reuse the process the school board followed during its last search in 2023, with some modifications, according to WBTV. Members plan to draw from past superintendent searches to build out a timeline and process, WFAE reports. Once that framework is established, the full nine-member board will carry the search through to completion, per the same report.
The committee itself functions only in an advisory role, according to the Charlotte Observer, overseeing the selection and hiring process before handing final decisions back to the board. The committee has not yet established a hiring timeline, QC News reported, and its next meeting is scheduled for November 16.
Community Input, With a Twist
During the 2023 search, community involvement played a major role in shaping the candidate profile, per QC News. This time around, the committee wants to repeat that community-feedback approach but change who delivers it: board members themselves, rather than a third party, will engage directly with the public, per the station's report. CMS board members will meet the public directly at upcoming town halls, and a community survey is slated to launch next to help build a candidate profile.
One major logistical question remains open. The committee has not said whether it will use a national search firm or get assistance from the North Carolina School Boards Association, the same report notes. WFAE's account adds that the board will likely hire a search firm to help identify candidates matching the eventual superintendent profile — though whether that firm would be a national search firm or another arrangement was not specified in that report, leaving the exact approach unsettled between the two accounts.
How the Last Search Ended
About 25 candidates were presented during the 2023 search, and Dr. Crystal Hill rose to the top as the board's pick, the station's report states. That hire didn't last. In September, the CMS board voted 5-4 to terminate Hill for convenience, and three of the four current search committee members had voted to keep her on the job, according to the same account. An outside investigation had found no evidence of wrongdoing on Hill's part, per the Charlotte Observer.
Dr. Melissa Balknight, who holds the role of deputy superintendent, was named acting superintendent in Hill's place, according to WBTV's earlier coverage. Whoever the board eventually selects will become the district's eighth permanent superintendent in a decade, a milestone WSOC-TV has noted as the search gets underway.
A National Pattern of Turnover
CMS isn't alone in cycling through leaders quickly. Superintendents currently running the nation's largest urban public school districts have served an average of just 2.7 years, compared with 4.9 years for their immediate predecessors, according to the Council of the Great City Schools. The same research found that the largest districts tend to see the shortest tenures of all.
London has pointed to that broader pattern while addressing the committee's work. Board Chair Gregory “Dee” Rankin has said hiring a superintendent is one of the board's most important responsibilities. London has also said the search process must be committed to transparency and inclusion, building trust through action. She has said that superintendent turnover should not necessarily be attributed to the search process itself, noting that large-district superintendents nationally serve an average of two and a half to three years.
Witherspoon, for his part, has previously described the board as dysfunctional and said the board must repair internal damage before it can select a new leader. That tension between a board still working through the fallout of Hill's ouster and the task of finding her successor looms over a committee that has, so far, settled on a process but little else.
