MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools district is working to revamp its district goals and guardrails for the next four years.
These goals and guardrails range from increasing literacy in elementary school students to improving discipline disparities.
For the last six years, CMS has used a list of goals and guard rails to guide policy and how schools run.
For example, one of its goals in the past few years is to increase the number of Black and Hispanic students reading at an advanced level.
The past state testing scores showed schools in the district saw progress and an increase in testing scores in both math and reading scores, although the gains they made fell short of the academic goals and guardrails the district has set for itself.
One example of a goal for CMS is the district's goal of wanting 36% of Black and Hispanic students to be college and career-ready based on English test scores by the end of the 2022 school year. Data showed the district fell short and only hit 15.9% of Black and Hispanic students being college and career-ready based on English test scores.
At Tuesday’s school board meeting, they talked about the feasibility of future goals.
“These recommended goals represent areas where we need to do new, different or progressive perhaps aggressive work," Beth Thompson, CMS Chief of Strategy and Innovation said. "Perhaps in a new or different way to achieve these goals.”
They also talked about what it means to not focus on specific student groups like Black and Hispanic students in the goals.
“The risk of having goals in the aggregate, for example, that don’t call out specific groups of students where we have significant achievement gaps could result in a lack of focus in improving students outcomes," Thompson said.
They also talked about goals focused on not only academics but life skills.
“Anything from real-world application issues to hygiene, to how to deal with stress," Stephanie Sneed, a CMS School Board Member, said.
The district spent weeks gaining community feedback on how they wanted to shape the next few years of goals and guardrails.
In the next few weeks, the final goals and guard rails will be voted on. There’s still time for them to change.
Contact Shamarria Morrison at smorrison@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.