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CMS to start interviewing superintendent finalists this week

The interviews are expected to be in person with the identity of the finalists tightly guarded for anonymity.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools board members will start interviewing finalists for the superintendent this week.

The district has whittled down the field from almost 40 candidates to between three to four finalists.

Interviews are scheduled for Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday in closed session at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center. 

The board will meet and immediately go into a closed session with candidates in person and in private. The interview times are in four-hour time blocks with one expected on May 4, two on May 6, and one on May 7. 

This comes more than a year after the district fired its last full-time superintendent, Earnest Winston. Winston came up from within the CMS ranks and the community never got a chance to weigh in on his candidacy before he got the job. 

Summer Nunn, the chair of the CMS Search Committee, said on the advice of the district search committee, they decided to keep candidate names a secret.

RELATED: Why CMS is choosing anonymity for its superintendent finalist

"We really were able to go after the top talent," Nunn said. "And that was very important to some of the top talent out there, that it would be confidential that way, whether or not they got chosen or if they didn't, they wouldn't have to expose that information to their current school system."

But, there are drawbacks to this approach, due to CMS's history of turnover in superintendent candidates. Some critics want to have stronger input on the front end.

The next person to fill the job will also bypass community scrutiny before being hired. The last time that CMS publicly shared who would be the finalist for the superintendent position was in 2012 when they hired Heath Morrison. 

District leaders held public sessions, where the community had the chance to ask questions of the top three finalists, one of whom was Morrison. 

CMS keeping its finalists private is part of a national trend that experts say is for the better candidates quality-wise. 

"Pre-COVID, it would not be uncommon for a meet and greet the candidates, said Bill Adams, the vice president of Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, a national superintendent search firm. "It wouldn't be uncommon for interviews with the candidates that would be public at the end. Post-COVID, we're seeing much, much less of that." 

In 2017, when the district hired Clayton Wilcox, they didn’t announce who he was until after he was hired. With Wilcox’s search and this search, the district got community feedback ahead of finding the finalists.

RELATED: South Charlotte relief school won't open this coming school year

The community feedback has been extensive. CMS gathered community surveys from multiple organizations and held both in-person and virtual feedback sessions.

"We did like a two-day blitz, and over a few thousand members of the community gave feedback," Nunn said. "And we built our leadership profile based on that feedback, and what the role of the superintendent is alongside the board."

Nunn said it directly guided what was posted to the applicants and applicants knew what they were looking for. The district released a leadership profile for the next superintendent. 

"It's much better to do it on the front end and listen to stakeholders on that front end," Adams said. "And then on the back end, when you actually get the candidates, at least through to your finalist on, to keep it confidential."

Both Morrison and Wilcox left the district under poor circumstances, which means there’s no clear history of the impact of the community weigh-in on finalists in CMS's more recent history. 

While CMS was hoping to hire a new superintendent by May 9, Nunn told WCNC Charlotte that appears to be unlikely with the current timeline needed to finalize the decision. At the time this article was published on May 2, 2023, a new timeline was being discussed with CMS staff.

Contact Shamarria Morrison at smorrison@wcnc.com and follow her on FacebookTwitter and Instagram.

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