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Charlotte executives will advise CMS on safety, mental health, teacher retention issues

Charlotte Observer - 6/22/2022

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools will turn to the business community to help it address some of the most prominent problems plaguing the district, interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh said Tuesday.

Hattabaugh and Mike Lamach, chair of the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council, announced a new partnership that will provide “significant resources” to the district and help it improve school safety, access to mental health services and teacher retention, among others, according to a news release.

The partnership would include the commitment of more than 1,000 volunteer tutors, a tutoring workshop and executives serving full-time in CMS across the next 12-18 months. School Board Chair Elyse Dashew told the Charlotte Observer Tuesday the executives will work in CMS full-time, but their employer will pay their salaries.

Dashew said each corporation will recruit a certain number of volunteers.

“In light of the pandemic and other historic challenges school districts are experiencing, we are grateful that members of the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council (CELC) reached out to CMS leadership and asked how they could help,” Dashew said in a news release.

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Not educators, but access to resources

CMS faces several challenges since the pandemic: low numbers of students are college- or career-ready in key subjects such as math and English, particularly among students who are Black or Latino; CMS broke a record of guns found on campuses during the first four months of the 2021-22 school year, which many teachers and students attributed to mental health; and hundreds of teachers resigned or retired as a result of the pandemic.

Hattabaugh said CMS needs a community-wide effort to provide students with a world-class education.

“We are grateful to the corporate community for its long-term, ongoing support and for this specific effort which brings valuable expertise and capacity to our district and the work at hand,” he said. “United, Charlotte can be a model of community and corporate engagement and its impact on the success of schools.”

As part of the partnership, a pair of corporate community leaders will serve as senior advisors to the superintendent and school board — Charles Bowman, the recently retired president of Bank of America North Carolina, and Frank Emory, the chief administrative officer for Novant Health.

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Other executives helping with the effort include: Raki McGregor, a senior vice president for Novant Health, who will lead corporate engagement efforts and the implementation of systemwide changes; LaShauna Lowry, an executive director for Ally Financial, who will lead tutoring efforts; Vanessa Sencherey and Rich Miller, lean business leaders for Atrium Health, who will lead process management efforts.

“The members of the CELC recognized the crisis that school systems throughout the nation are facing,” Lamach said. “We are not educators. We do, however, have access to resources and expertise that can support school leadership and staff in their critical work to serve our students.”

CELC member organizations will release additional details and announcements about the partnership, according to the news release. Executives from Novant Health, Ally Financial and Atrium Health will help lead efforts in tutoring and work with the CMS strategy team.

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