CMS school board candidates: District 5

There are two candidates running in District 5. There is no incumbent.

Lisa Cline (Republican): Cline is a retired CMS teacher and administrator. Her platform includes learning loss and school safety. She said her experience teaching during the pandemic inspired her to run. Cline has called the most recent slew of superintendent searches a "downhill" spiral. She wants to discourage the next superintendent candidate from using the position as a springboard to larger districts or outside consulting jobs. Cline believes the district needs new, not previously elected, board members. She believes the distinct has taken away the creativity of teachers and this has led to declining test scores, and student outcomes. Cline wants to also advocate for bringing back master pay and increasing the local teacher supplement. Here's what Cline said when she answered WCNC Charlotte's questionnaire.

WATCH CLINE'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Trent Merchant (Undesignated): Merchant is a former at-large board member who served from 2006-2011. He has the endorsement of Margaret Marshall, who is the person who previously served in this seat. Also, prominent members of the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners and former school board members. Key issues he is touting are being on the board during the 2008 recession and changing the CMS bullying policy to have protections for LGBTQ rights. He said he helped reintroduced the expulsion for weapons and violent assault infractions. Here's what Merchant said when he answered WCNC Charlotte's questionnaire.

WATCH MERCHANT'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

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WCNC Charlotte Education Reporter Shamarria Morrison interviewed each candidate running for the school board about their positions on a number of critical topics facing education. Each candidate was given up to 16 minutes to respond to questions regarding the following topics: School safety, the CMS superintendent search, teacher and staff retention and CMS achievement scores.

WCNC Charlotte asked the following questions of each candidate:

School Safety

• In 2021, CMS had a record number of guns found in the first half of the school year. In response, the board directed the superintendent to make changes. The most front-facing included almost 10 million in weapons detectors, and more than $400,000 on clear backpacks. As of Sept 26, CMS reported no guns found on campuses this year. What other moves does CMS need to make to continue to make school safer? NOTE: After we concluded all but one of our interviews (Steven Rushing) we learned one gun was found at Julius Chambers High School
• An ATF report shows the number of bomb threats targeted at schools has increased more than two-fold from 2019-2021. In 2022, Every Town Search tracked at least 113 incidents of gunfire on school grounds, resulting in 41 deaths and 82 injuries nationally. Who has the answers to stop school gun violence and how would you utilize their resources? 

CMS Superintendent Search

• CMS will start its superintendent search and interviews in earnest after the November elections. For the past decade, the district has had trouble keeping anyone in the top position for more than 3 years. What do you attribute to the superintendent turnover and how will you change this on the board?
• What is the one important question you’ll be asking the next superintendent of CMS schools and what is the answer you want from them to consider them for the job? 

Teacher and Staff Retention

• As of Sept 22, CMS is still searching for more than 350 teachers to fill classrooms. Although the district has current stop gaps to fill these positions like, guest teachers, funding will run out for them. What is in board control to increase teacher and staff retention? 
• In February 2022, WCNC reported at that time about 11% or just over 1,000 of CMS’s teaching staff had retired or resigned. Common reasons we heard for them leaving was pay, morale, school culture, and workload. What is a culture issue CMS is facing and how will you work to fix this? 

CMS Achievement Scores

• WCNC compared four area districts' performance grades to CMS. The schools we compared were Catawba, Union County, Gaston, Cabarrus and CMS. CMS’s grade level proficiency scores were towards the bottom of the batch, but the district growth scores are towards the top. What should parents take away from CMS’s performance scores? 
• On a statewide level, traditional public schools on average had higher grade-level proficiency scores than charter schools. WCNC analyzed area charter schools and CMS’s proficiency levels for Black and Hispanic students. The charter schools had higher proficiency levels for these students than CMS. The number of charter school enrolments for students in North Carolina has increased over the last five years according to the Department of education. How do you keep Black and Hispanic students in traditional public schools when some would argue for decades traditional public school has failed them?

WATCH ALL THE CANDIDATE INTERVIEWS HERE

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Lisa Cline: One thing we need to follow what Matthews has done, which is that they provide an SRO on the elementary level, and on the middle school levels. There are no SROs and CMS on the elementary level. So you're going to create a culture that the police is our friend at a Matthews elementary school. So CMS needs to partner not with just CMPD. We know CMPD is having trouble hiring officers, but we can partner with Pineville we can partner with Cornelius, Huntersville, Mint Hill, and look at the elementary schools see if we cannot get SROs. That's our goal. But also with Campus Security associates, we could put Campus Security associates on the elementary school level. I've talked with people within CMS Police Department, persons shared, we've put this before the board with the budget, and they've never approved it. We could hire retired CMPD officers, what person's not going to enjoy getting two different pensions? What- we could hire additional military, retired military, they can train them quicker than someone who's not ever been a police officer. So there are ways we just have to look at the funding. Children need to feel safe. The teachers need to feel safe. If they're not feeling safe, then they're not going to learn. And we want the children to learn. We want the teachers to feel safe so they're not worried about every little thing that has to happen to make sure that their kids are safe. Okay, and forgive me I'm not flippant, but I can show my age. When I was in high school we would have probably weekly bomb threats called into my high school. Principal figured out it was at the payphone within the net shows that I'm aging myself, but within the courtyard that the kids were going calling and we were evacuating the school. So, first of all, it's an I celebrated my 40th high school reunion many years ago. So I- I'm telling you it is an ongoing problem. It is not something that's brand new, so I'm not making light of it. But that is something that we have to deal with now the gun violence on campus. That's where we have to work with our communities and we have to get the community involved in the school. For some reason the school seemed to have shut their doors to the community, they don't want the community in the school. If we do that, and we have a better partnership between what's going on, then we can start decreasing the gun violence. Now the bomb threats, like I said, it's been going on. Take cellphones, you know, we have kids can do it. Sitting in the classroom, I don't want to take this test today, oh, let me just do this. There has to be some punishments, not a slap on the hand. It has to be something that is going to make parents become involved and talking to their children of not doing silly things. And it's not silly. It's dumb things like that. We have but again, it's involving the community. And again, bomb threats. It's bored kids. It's somebody who wants to see action, and it's how we react to it. 

WATCH CLINE'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Trent Merchant: Yeah, so and I support the things that they've done, except the backpacks. I mean, that was silly, from the beginning. But we don't want to focus on what's already happened on, you know, my campaigns about being present and looking forward. So you know, and I want to be clear, I don't think that school shootings are caused by bullying. I think, you know, school shootings happen, because we're the only country in the world that has more guns than people. But it's a factor. And a lot of people who come and do violence at school are what I would call hyper-local, you know, they're known entities, they might have gone to that school, they're from the neighborhood, they had a bad experience, they felt ostracized, what I hear from my own kids and their friends. So it's anecdotal. But it sounds like we could do a better job with our bullying education. A lot of people are bashing social-emotional learning, which, you know, I don't get it. It's not like we're not going to teach math because we want to talk about how to respect each other and how to be empathetic and open in our relationships. But we're coming out of a pandemic, where we've all been pretty isolated. I think we've got to make sure that we know how to deal with each other. You know, I find myself sometimes in situations, you know, business meeting, we're five minutes and I go, Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to give you a card. We've forgotten these little skills, right? So, you know, I think we need to do those things. But a lot of it comes down to having really strong principals who create healthy cultures, on their campuses. Cultures, where people feel included, where they want to be there, where they feel like they're part of what and welcomed in that environment. I think that's essential. And I think we're doing that so far this year, which is one of the reasons that schools have been safe so far. Yeah, and again, there's no magic wand. Unfortunately, if there were we would all be waving it. I think it comes back to culture. The way that our young people deal with each other is a reflection of the way that adults deal with each other and what they see on TV and in politics are adults screaming at each other and finding, you know, fault with each other and finding ways that they disagree. It's a name-drop, and I apologize, but it's so relevant to this. Maya Angelou was one of my grad school professors. And she used to always say, I mean, it was one of her mantras, right? We are more alike than we are unlike first day in her class, all we did was learn everybody's name so that we could have some semblance of relationship. Our society has gotten so transactional schools are a place that should be intellectual and emotional incubators where students feel safe, where they feel welcomed, where they feel like they can build relationships. And we've got to focus on that doesn't mean that we have to, you know, sit around holding hands singing songs, but we do have to create, it's not just about physical safety. A lot of times, it's about, you know, for example, a classroom setting where a kid can ask a question and not feel like people are going to jump all over him. It's about basic kindness and empathy. And that's a process.

WATCH MERCHANT'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

**NOTE: All of these quotes are transcriptions of their on-camera interviews with Morrison**

Lisa Cline: Well, first of all, it has been a downhill spiral. I wouldn't use the same companies to search companies. And I certainly wouldn't use the same process to hire a superintendent. Right now I know that they're using community engagement to see what qualities that they want. And that's important. But then the board has to look at who can be visionary, who can be a healer, who can be a financial expert, who is willing to cross all the bridges. But again, they have to look at what's what is available, and who is going to commit strictly to CMS, not have one foot outside the door, looking to make a name for themselves of oh, here's how I've done such a great job with CMS, hire me as a consultant. I was asked a few weeks ago about you know, superintendents, being able to be consultants. We've got to figure a way to say no, you cannot be a consultant while you're a CMS superintendent. It's nice, but you're not going to make a name for yourself and leave right when we get things going well, and that's happened in the past as well. Because I've been here since 90, and I've been through a number of them. And some of them made a name. I've done a beautiful job here. And I'm getting hired to do something else. So we have to be very careful in what we're looking at. First of all, how are you going to close the gap? We have 50% of our students below grade level reading, how are you going to do that? Are you going to direct it? Are you going to get in there with your sleeves pulled up and work with the teachers? Are you willing to clean house and straighten up CMS? So that's the first question I'm going to ask is how are you going to close the achievement gap? We have to do that. Because we have so much to recoup. The second thing is how are you going to retain the teachers? How are you going to recruit the teachers and retain them? And again, are you going to get into the ditches with them and work with them? Not at them.

WATCH CLINE'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Trent Merchant: So, you know, my hope is that given my professional background, I would chair the search committee. What I have seen from the board is that some members start from a biased point of view, you know, I want this in a superintendent. And there's simple things that don't really matter, I want a woman, I want a black man, I want to no let's agree on what we want in terms of characteristics, leadership qualities, personality traits. And then let's do a search with an objective framework, and an a good process that includes clear vetting, we hired one superintendent that, you know, a Google search could have probably uncovered what a local reporter uncovered days after he started the last superintendent, I love the man. But he should not have been the superintendent, I think they set him up to fail, I even told some of them, you know, you're going to hire a very nice black man, and you're going to crucify him publicly, and you're going to pay the price for it. Unfortunately, that's what happened. But you know, I've got a set of characteristics in mind. But before we all decide, I know what I want, we need to listen to the public this time. And that's why I'm pleased that there's a committee out engaging, and they're going to present their findings to us at the first board meeting in December. Well, I do have some questions, and there'll be part of a behavioral interview process that we do. So I don't want to reveal that right now to any potential candidates, I will say that I think it's important that you know, a superintendent have experience in a, an organization runs, you know, running an organization, whether it's the top of the organization, or a division level, where there's lots of employees, lots of different sites, lots of moving parts, they need to be courageous so that they can make decisions without having all of the information. And they need to be strategic enough to make those decisions in a way that we can learn, adapt and keep building on those, excuse me, those decisions, rather than having to undo everything every 12 to 18 months, they've got to have a lot of empathy, to understand different cultures that we have locally. And I would say that they've got to have the humility, to be able to accept blame and give away credit. I think an inspirational leader is probably the best type for this sort of organization. But you know, those are all pretty broad categories. So I'm not locked in on, you know, must have done this exact job before must have this, you know, degree. That stuff doesn't matter so much once somebody has a career behind them. 

WATCH MERCHANT'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

**NOTE: All of these quotes are transcriptions of their on-camera interviews with Morrison**

Lisa Cline: Well, we all know that the state determines the basic salary. But we as a community, and as a county can determine the supplement. I would like CMS, being one of the largest districts in the state to lead an experiment, it would be nice if we, as a district, put in masters pay in the supplement part. Therefore, teachers who- no longer are paid for their masters get paid for improving their education, they get paid another step, just like in South Carolina for that specialist, that can be part of the supplement that CMS gives their teachers. Also, with the state salary, you have steps of seven to 10 years in their step increases, our supplement should be yearly. So that as a teacher progresses, and they improve their education, they do the different things that need to be done, it will help with the retention. That is one way of doing it. The state has done away with longevity. I was a that's one of the many reasons I decided to go ahead and retire, I wasn't being paid for longevity, we can, as a district put that into the supplement. So there are ways of paying the teachers, teachers who are at risk schools, at one time got additional funding, they had their masters paid for, of course, the state takes away the Masters, there's no incentive. But if you have the incentive locally to do that, then we pay those teachers, we pay for those masters, we pay those teachers extra. So there are ways that we can do that, we have to look at restructuring the system, I think we're very top-heavy. Some of the people downtown who are at teacher level should be moved back into the classrooms, especially for purchasing curriculum, there's no need to have people to develop it. So there are ways of moving monies around. Well, when a teacher is given a curriculum and you teach what we've purchased, and you teach, just like your next-door teacher, that takes away creativity, we hire teachers because they are the best of what they're doing. So okay, you know, your classrooms best. Here's the outline, here's the North Carolina standard course of study, here is point A, we were going to get to point x, you figure it out with what is best for your kids. It's also those kids who need the extra help you're doing that the kids who need to be pushed, you do something differently. So we have taken away the creativity of the teachers. That's wrong. In 2011. CMS, of course, won the Broad Prize, everybody talks about that my opponent does a lot. Let me tell you- the companies that supported it, and supported the Broad Prize said the reason that CMS did so well is that the teachers were creative with their time, they were creative with their curriculum. By doing that, they took the outline of what was necessary for the students to pass, and they did what was needed to be done. So teachers don't like the parameters, you have to do this. And that, and then you have to give a test, then the test is not something that they've created. It's something that is state-based. So I've talked with many children. My teacher said I don't have to worry about this. This is just the test. So the teachers are teaching, teaching just to the test because that's what they've been told to do. That's wrong. We're not teaching our children to think we're teaching them to pass a test that the state has done, and we can't do that. We have to teach them to think and we have to allow the teachers to do what they're doing best.

WATCH CLINE'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Trent Merchant: So it's a big theme in my campaign, I write about it on my website, I talk about leadership and culture all of the time, because they go hand in hand. Look, CMS has lots and lots of stuff, right? We've got initiatives and programs and partnerships, culture, though, I look at culture, as you know, it's the environment that we create through our actions where we're emphasizing values that you know, the behaviors and attitudes that we value, to achieve the results that we want. As a former teacher, I can tell you, when I had a great principal, I felt empowered to go for it, to try new things, to take some risks to step outside some lines every now and then. Because I knew if I messed up, my principal had my back. Now, it didn't mean there were no consequences, right? I got corrected. But when I had a weak principal, who, you know, hid in her office, I was kind of out on an island, I was on my own, and I was more teaching right by the curriculum and not stepping outside the lines. So you know, a lot of culture is based on strong leadership, clear communication, and setting goals that get us all on the same page. Well, so I think, you know, I work on this professionally, right, and I'm even working with the school district on this right now. But you know, before we can recruit, and recruit and recruit, but if our retention is a sieve, it's not going to matter. So we've got to shore up what we have, we've got to focus on schoolhouse culture. The message that I would communicate to teachers is help is on the way from some new board members, and we're going to absolutely get the superintendent search right, which means that we're going to have a better leadership team that communicates more effectively. And I think teachers are going to feel it as if we have principals' backs so they can have their teachers' backs. Once we create a better landing area for new recruits, I think that's when we go all out. And in recruiting teachers, Charlotte's a great place to live, especially for young people. There's so many different options. We do have to get creative at some point. You know, I would like for us to look at the CMS foundation as sort of a vehicle as for of pseudo-endowment that will protect us from the political whims of the state and the county. We absolutely have to build better relationships with the state and the county but before we go begging for more money, we've got to get some wins. and prove to them that we know what we're doing.

WATCH MERCHANT'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

**NOTE: All of these quotes are transcriptions of their on-camera interviews with Morrison**

Lisa Cline: That's a good question. I would say, first of all, look at the look at where CMS was, yes, Cabarrus was below. But what did all those counties have in common? They opened up the schools ahead of time. They allow their children to be in school. So parents should be aware that yes, they the kid, they performed better. But our students did well on the test. So what did they learn in those few days that they were in school at the second semester? They learned the test. That's all they were doing. So the children are going to perform well on the test. But did they show growth, no? The State the counties around CMS performed except for Gas- for Cabarrus- Gaston and I was right, sorry, Gaston, they performed better, and they're going to continue to form that perform better because they're already ahead on the growth scale, we're gonna have to do some heavy pushing this year and the teachers are having, as I said, they're having to create lessons within the parameters that they've been given. Right now, CMS is not the place to send their kids. That's why charter school applications are on the rise. I was at a meeting about three months ago, where an African-American mother talked about sending her children to charter school, because the elementary school where her children would have gone, had failed her children. They weren't encouraged them to learn. I apologize to that mother. As a person who had worked in CMS at that time, we have hurt that we need to make our district and our schools better than what they are. So that we can say, CMS is the best alternative. We don't want people moving to Charlotte and saying, "What's the best charter school, what's the best private school", we want them to say "what's the best elementary school that we can put our child in? What's the best Middle School? What's the best high school" when I moved here in 1990. That's why I moved where I did. I chose the best elementary school for my children. I wasn't worried about where I was working. I wanted that for my child. And every child and every family and CMS deserves the best that we can give them regardless of where they live. And we're not doing that. So we have to be competitive. We're not just competing with the private schools or with each other. We're competing with charter schools, and we need to do what needs to be done to get the people back in CMS.

WATCH CLINE'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Trent Merchant: Sure, you know, I think the comparison to surrounding districts is natural. For me, I'm not really that interested in that I don't think that we should compare ourselves to Cabarrus, and Union County man with all respect to those places, they're just very different. We need to compare, we need to set high goals, and compare ourselves against those goals. When I was on the board from 2006 to 2011, our mantra, I mean, it unified us and it drove the beat of everything that we did was raise the bar and close the gap when it comes to student achievement. What that means is that for students who are already performing, we need to challenge them even more, we need to raise the bar. And at the same time, it's not either or it's both. And we need to rapidly accelerate the growth of students who are not performing up to expectations. I think that's exactly the challenge that we have right now. And I don't think COVID caused all of this, it's certainly exaggerated some of the gaps, but we were already experiencing some of those gaps. But again, through focus and great leadership, we've got a chance to, to raise the bar and close the gap. So the example that's in my head right now is the Carolina Panthers. If you looked at the stadium on Sunday, it was 60% full and of that, it 60% of the fans were 49ers fans, right, Panthers need to put a better product on the field, CMS needs to put a better product on the field, and that will pull people back. You know, we're not competing against private schools or parochial schools, or even charter schools. Our job, you know, now, look, the rules are different. All of those schools get to pick their students. We don't whoever walks in the door we take by law. So you know, the inputs are different, but it doesn't matter. We've got to meet the challenge. And again, I think we've got to focus on keeping the main thing, the main thing, if they have a major criticism of the board in recent years, it's been that they've been a little all over the place. You know, when you have 13 priorities, you have no priorities. So focus, and then great leadership, creating a culture where teachers feel like we have their backs is going to be the answer.

WATCH MERCHANT'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

**NOTE: All of these quotes are transcriptions of their on-camera interviews with Morrison**

As a reminder, early voting in North Carolina starts Oct. 20 and lasts through Saturday, Nov. 5, 2022, at 3 p.m. After Nov. 5, you may register to vote during the one-stop early voting period. This process is called “Same-Day Registration.” Complete details on registering to vote in North Carolina and the qualifications you need to meet can be found on the North Carolina State Board of Elections website.  

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Register to vote in North Carolina here.

Contact Shamarria Morrison at smorrison@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.