MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — Wednesday, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education sat down for a special meeting with the Mecklenburg County Board of County Commissioners.
The two boards say meetings like this will be more frequent, as they say they want to work more closely and collaborate on services such as student health, security and universal pre-K.
CMS Superintendent Earnest Winston also addressed county commissioners Wednesday for the first time since news broke that the district’s million-dollar crisis alert system isn’t working.
The decision to purchase the system was made by former CMS superintendent Dr. Clayton Wilcox, but county commissioners took advantage of the opportunity to ask Winston how he and the district plans to fix it and save the county’s investment moving forward.
“If the company does not meet our February 10th deadline, it’s our expectation that we will go in a different direction and recoup our funds,” Winston said.
Winston assured county commissioners their investment will be protected, while promises were also made to close the loophole, which gave the district the authority to make the purchase through purchase orders without getting county approval.
“The board has begun to have conversations to make sure we’re not in this same position going forward,” Winston said.
Also discussed Wednesday, a desire to work together at both the county and district level to tackle community and student health as one.
This comes after the school district says they saw 358,341 health room visits last school year. They also say school nurses are seeing a significant increase in chronic illnesses among children.
Together, they’re also working toward adding more school psychologists, training current guidance counselors to be more versed in social and emotional issues and adding more school nurses.
The school district said they have one school nurse position available for every school, but that they have a 12-20 vacancy rate at any given time.
They cited competition among area hospitals as once cause for the vacancies.
The county and school district also announced plans to unify pre-K programs.
Right now, there are three programs either offered solely by the county, or solely by CMS. Each has its own requirements and applications.
Wednesday, WCNC learned they’re hoping to consolidate the application process, creating one universal application for all three. They say the family will then be directed to the program best suited for the student.