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CMS working to increase college and career competitiveness of students through endorsements

The district is currently off track to increase the number of students earning an endorsement alongside their high school diploma.

MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools district is currently off track to increase the number of students earning an endorsement alongside their high school diploma.

Endorsements give students a competitive edge to apply for colleges in North Carolina. Students can also get an endorsement for language skills or a job in the workforce like construction.

There are five types of endorsements North Carolina students can graduate with. 

CMS's Career Technical Education, or CTE, courses-related endorsements were hit hard.

"I think students, especially our seniors, were impacted by the lack of the ability to have hands-on activities that many of our career technical education programs have," CMS Interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh said. 

Only 37.7% of students graduating are on track to earn an endorsement this school year, but CMS is having trouble accurately tracking the number.  

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"It's a statewide Power School data quality concern, I don't believe this was a CMS," Margaret Marshall, a CMS Board member, said. "This was a CMS discovered -- we discovered it but it's a statewide issue."

In May, CMS saw inaccuracies in how language endorsements were tracked. 

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“The accountability team had been working diligently to get us a platform and a tool and a system and process in place so that we can monitor the endorsements accurately," Hattabaugh said. 

In a report, CMS said," These errors are significant, and contributed to over reporting of at least 10.6 percentage points in 2020-21. Specifically, we reported 61.2% of graduates in 2021 earned an endorsement when the actual percentage was 50.6% based on the data stored in PowerSchool. These data errors put our calculations for 2021-22 into question." 

Students, who started high school during a pandemic, and are now seniors have felt the weight of graduation. 

"The pressure has been kind of tough on me dealing with varsity sports as long with college applications," Moises Guerrero, a CMS senior, said. "It's been, it's been pretty rough because I'm planning on doing early action for all my schools." 

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CMS says a solution to help with stress and endorsement interest is talking to students early. 

"When it comes to the endorsements, and what their focus area happens to be as I go through, and what do they plan on doing once they walk across the stage? What are their interests?" Hattabaugh asked. 

The district says it's waiting on the state to beta test a new way to track endorsements in January. They will then be able to accurately assess the data when it's rolled out statewide. 

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

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