MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) is seeking public input to shape its priorities for the next few years.
The district relies on a framework known as goals and guardrails to guide key policy decisions.
Goals and guardrails include things like improving student achievement to a career and college level and promoting fair discipline practices by decreasing disproportionate discipline referrals and suspensions.
"These goals, these guardrails will inform our budget," Dee Rankin, a CMS School Board Member, and chair of the Student Outcome Focus Governance committee said. "They will inform our strategic plan. So we really want to make sure we have as much community feedback as possible.
CMS has faced challenges in meeting some of its current goals throughout the year.
Most recently, only 9.4% of high school students taking Math 1 are considered career and college ready based on test scores. The district's goals and guardrails wanted to see that number at 25% by the end of next school year.
It begs the question — should the current goals and guardrails stay the same until they’re achieved?
"Some of those may change," Rankin said. "Some may stay the same. But we can take the time to reevaluate them."
The feedback received from parents and the community through an ongoing online survey will help determine whether they should continue focusing on the existing goals or make necessary adjustments.
CMS has provided a six-question survey, allowing participants to contribute their thoughts on the district's vision, values, and development of future goals and guardrails.
The responses collected will significantly shape the decision-making process of the CMS board.
Survey response: Quantity and quality matter
As CMS seeks public input through the survey, the number of responses becomes a critical factor in ensuring comprehensive community engagement.
While final numbers are pending, initial statistics indicate 14,000 clicks on the survey within the first week. However, the challenge lies in converting those clicks into completed submissions.
Christine Edwards, founder and principal of Civility Localized, emphasizes the importance of intentional community engagement.
"Make sure you get an accurate or a representative number of responses from racial categories that might be underrepresented, or racial categories that might be disproportionately affected by some of those barriers," Edwards said.
The digital divide is one barrier for CMS families. The district is currently partnering with Mecklenburg County’s Center for Digital Equity to help identify eligible families to enroll in the federal government’s Affordable Connectivity Program. CMS and the Center for Digital Equity estimate the program could impact anywhere between 70,000 to 100,000 student households.
Before taking office Rankin was a past member of CMS's Community Equity Advisory Committee. He said he looks at all community engagement through this lens.
"We're being intentional with who we're engaging with, and getting feedback with some of the in-person Zoom sessions to help provide everyone an opportunity to have input," Rankin said.
The quality of the survey is another crucial aspect. According to Edwards, multiple-choice responses are preferred as they facilitate both the respondents' participation and the subsequent data analysis.
"It makes it easier to analyze the data on the back end, if you have a lot of open-ended questions on your survey, it's going to make it hard to filter through and summarize all of those narrative responses," Edwards said.
CMS intentionally chose open-ended questions for its current survey.
"We want to keep them open-ended," Rankin said. "Because we want to know, we don't want to, you know, box individuals in on their perspective."
CMS plans to consider all perspectives gathered during the survey when outlining its new vision in August.
Final numbers regarding survey participation are yet to be disclosed, with the first in-person meeting scheduled for next week.
Contact Shamarria Morrison at smorrison@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.