Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has named 25 community members and 23 employees to lead the task forces that will help Superintendent Heath Morrison and the school board chart the future of CMS.
A news release says CMS has already gotten hundreds of requests to take part. Morrison wants to keep membership to about a dozen on each of the 22 panels to ensure each group can work effectively. That means some won't get a requested assignment -- but everyone will have a chance to attend public meetings with the task forces in 2013.
District leaders plan to announce membership later this month, with task force meetings running from January to June and helping shape the 2013-14 budget and the five-year strategic plan.
Here's who has been named to lead the groups:
*Closing the Achievement Gap: Marian Yates, former principal of South Mecklenburg High, and Karin Dancy, CMS director of grant innovation.
 |
| Collier |
*Early Childhood: Anna Nelson, a leader of the C.D. Spangler Foundation and co-chair of Project LIFT, and Julie Babb, CMS director of prekindergarten services.
*African American Males: Eric Watson of Food Lion; Nick Wharton, identified by CMS as "community member;" and Deb Kaclik, CMS director of arts, health and physical education.
 |
| Echeverria |
*Special Education: Gil Middlebrooks, a former CMS parent and a lawyer who has represented CMS in special-ed cases, and Laura Hamby, director of exceptional children.
*Gifted Students: Molly Griffin, former CMS board chair and parent, and Kathleen Koch, CMS director of advanced studies.
 |
| Anderson |
*Professional Growth System: Tim Hurley, executive director of Teach for America's Charlotte office, and Nicole Priestly, executive director of CMS' central elementary zone.
*Compensation: Bo Boylan, a CMS parent and business consultant, and CMS program manager Jaronica Howard.
 |
| DeVaul |
 |
| Schindler |
*CMS Foundation: Jay Everette of Wells Fargo and CMS partnership coordinator Phyllis Croutch.
 |
| Arthur Griffin |
*Cultural Competence Framework: Dianne English, executive director of the Community Building Initiative, and Maria Petrea, former principal of Collinswood Language Academy and current executive director of CMS' east zone.
 |
| English |
*Process and System Improvement: Leslie Johnson, associate general manager for Mecklenburg County, and Janelle Jenkins, a Broad Fellow working for CMS.
*Choice, Alternatives and Magnets: CMS parent Joel Gilland, CMS magnet director Jeff Linker and CMS executive director of alternative education Lisa Barnes.
 |
| Rembert |
*Technology and Blended Learning: Gwen Simmons, Mecklenburg County's chief technology officer, and Kay Hall, CMS director of business systems.
*Public Trust, Marketing and Branding: Jerri Haigler, a former CMS spokeswoman who is now a communication executive for United Way of Central Carolinas, and CMS communications director Tahira Stalberte.
*Time, Capital and Resource Management: Julian Wright, a CMS parent who once chaired the CMS Equity Committee, and LuEllen Richard, CMS executive director of financial services.
Posts
66 comments:
Teachers? Students? Impressive list of the same old, same old leading a Kumbaya Fest.
CMS cannot be fixed unless the core problems are addressed.
Now repeat this 10,000 times.
Whoa! This looks like the same old, same old. How can someone on the inside see what's wrong? Even some of the community members are too close to the forest to see the trees!! If this is as innovative as Morrision can get, God bless us all.
African American Males get their own
task force independent of the Performance Gap group?
Would love to see what "solutions" they come up with for that.
Not that I'm expecting anything useful, just interested in seeing how well they dance around that elephant.
Seriously?
Rembert, Griffin and Griffin? And Anderson?
The past or "in thing" comes back around every other decade or so.
I guess it's the same for failed educrats who led CMS down the road to busing, bond failures and parental distrust of CMS management.
250 people to help manage CMS even though we have elected a Board of Education and a Superintendent and his staff to do it.
Out of all of the people on that list, you chose to recycle some of the worst ones? LOL , I just commented the other day I haven't heard too much insanity from CMS since Gorman left, spoke too soon.
Anybody that has the energy to sit around in numerous meetings properly tossing back and forth ephemeral academic jargon has NO capacity to prevent this stalled aircraft of CMS from crashing into the ground!
Hysterical. And sad.
And does Morrison even know about the Dec. 2005 CMS Task Force report?
Devja Vue. What does around comes back around?
What goes around comes around?
Marian Yates - Seriously? (abysmal test scores)
Molly Griffin - Seriously? (forced busing, the Choice Plan?)
Bill Anderson - Seriously?
Ellen Martin - Seriously? (the Equity Committee? The Middle Ring?)
Rabbi Schindler - Seriously?
Arthur Griffin - You can't be serious. Seriously? (forced busing? Waddell High School?)
Willemenia Rembert - Someone hit me over the head. Seriously? (forced busing?)
Jerri Haigher - Seriously?
OMG, where's Vilma and George? Heck, where's Larry? It's like a bad dream on acid. Fasten your seat belts, folks!
OMG.
Every child, every day, for a repeat of the past!
Forced busing,the Equity Committee, The Middle Ring, The Choice Plan, Waddell High School. Is it April Fools Day?
CMS regurgitates the nightmare. God, have mercy on us all!
This is one teacher who has lost hope. Same old story. Do you see ANY current classroom teachers on this list? Of course not.
My hope for Dr. Morrison changing things has now disappeared.
A bad dream on acid...
I love that one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EsCyC1dZiN8
Groundhog Day....
Look at all of the liberal Democrats selected, the same liberal Democrats who just voted a President back into office with the slogan "Forward", yet does nothing but blame the past administration and others for his failures the last four years.
Maybe the Board of Education, Morrison and the heads of these committees can go to Washington and "bring home the bacon", but you better hurry, Detroit has already loaded up the bus and hit the road running.
From nbcnews.com:
"Echoing a theme stated by many other companies, [Apple CEO Tim] Cook said he believes the U.S. education system is failing to produce enough people with the skills needed for modern manufacturing processes. He added, however, that he hopes the new Mac project will help spur others to bring manufacturing back to the U.S."
I just upchucked my fruit loops.
Dear current school board,
Past school boards never paid any credence to community task-forces. Now is most certainly NOT the time to change this policy!
The Equity Committee, the Choice Plan, Waddell, The Middle Ring, Forced Busing? Ah!!!!!! Make it go away! Make it go away!
Wow I can not believe some board meembers have nto stood up and said how this has not represented all the students in Mecklenburg County.
Do you just want the suburban schools to shut down and make those students go away, but keep their parents' tax dollars?
This one step may bring some state legislature action to allow parents to get tuition breaks on their taxes.
It's never too late to move, y'all...
The CMS Adams Family Reunion. Judge Manning, come on down!
12:11, kids are gone. Concerned about our qualiy of community going downhill and the ever accelerating property tax burden. Hopefully housing prices can recover some next year. Need to sell the house to afford to move. Taking a hit on the credit rating is tough to overcome if you just walk away and you are not a minority.
CMS cannot be fixed unless the core problems are addressed. Eliminate busing.
Now repeat this 10,000 times.
THIS IS A GOOD START!!!
Morrison is very talented and I can see he knows what needs to be done.
Things are getting better already!!!
Southernboy JJ
Southernboy JJ, you forgot the tongue in check emitcon.
48 leaders and 22 task forces will test Dr. Morrison's new communication plan.
In the CMS news release, the communication task force is listed last. Probably would be a good idea to start and complete that effort so any benefits can be uniformly applied to the other 21.
Bolyn McClung
Pineville
What I'd give to have a seat on the school board with the power to dismiss Molly, Whillemina, Arthur, The Middle Ring, and the Equity Committee. A dream come true. My fantasy realized.
I am a CMS proponent, and work with many of the people on the list. Many are good, skilled, leaders. That said, I am highly disappointed in the direction this is going. If the plan is to "move CMS forward", focusing so strongly on the past and present, whether good or bad, is exactly the wrong way to do it.
What other divisive lightening rods can we add to the mix? How about inviting the leaders of Ballantyne's Spark to join in? Ya' know, just to balance the Middle Ring out - in the spirit of peace, love and "Equity"?
Alicia Durand
I nominate Kojo and Larry to the list of leaders.
Apaprently, plenty of folks are wielding Kojo's influence if he is not directly. You know the uptown power brokers don't want him to get vocally mad anymore to embarass this community.
Thank God my wife finally convinced me to take my kids out of CMS. With a taste of a different school I can now say that CMS is a complete train wreck.
Since white children make up only 30% of CMS, will there be a special committee to see how to better serve that MINORITY?
The headline should read "CMS taps 48 Dry Wells"
No amount of new fracking technology could get anything productive out of these.
YES, What about the WHITE MINORITY students of CMS. Where is their special interest group? Why is there no effort to represent these minority students in this county while they are still here?
Well, this is a disapointment! All the same people that have been on every other 'task force' in Charlotte. We need different!
Well you have the same old voices "community leaders" and the CMS Employees are all upper management..How about some real employees , not Heath's yes men and women worried about shake ups and firings..... I think you should have a task force why it takes so many "administrative positions" to basically make no decisions......the old three guys leaning on a shovel watching one guy dig.......oh wait manual labor ...we wouldn't understand that one
"Yesterday's Leaders for a Hopeless Tomorrow"
One small step hiring Dr. Morrison, one giant leap backwards for CMS.
Unbelievable. Truly, unbelievable.
48 Taps.
Day is done, gone the sun, watch white folks run, tired of being shunned, just no more fun.... 38 kids in a classroom, let me puke in the bathroom, The Middle Ring, you ain't my king...
The wheels on the bus go round and round...
No need to purchase IPads for this group. A 1972 retro rendition of cross-town Pong ought to suffice.
Jane,
Different would require the ability to think outside a diversity box.
3:36
The Outer Ring is irrelevant.
Marian Yates contributed to the achievement gap. South Meck. had terrible scores until it's recent principal showed up. Correct me if I'm wrong.
REMBERT?
GRIFFIN?
Is Morrison on acid? or does he just not know two of the main the reasons we are in this mess?
(Rem + Griff + E E-S = even worse than just E E-S).
Well, at least he didn't appoint Louise Woods.
I assure you Louise Woods has her hands in this.
Inner Ring......
Outer Ring.........
Middle Ring..........
In reality, the ring around the toilets.
That's so funny. I was wondering where Louise Woods was in all of this? The thing about Louise is I always thought her heart was in the right place. There's a genuineness to her that makes the off-the-grid leftist educational philosophy bearable. I'd much prefer having her lead a task-force committee than some of the rest. I'd also prefer her to someone who talks out of both sides of their mouth. There's no such thing as being "independent" on the school board. You land on one side of the line drawn in the sand or the other. You might not agree with Louise but there's some humility there. Blessed are the peacemakers.
My 33 cents.
Alicia
Keep your friends close but your enemies closer - Griffin and Griffin, Rembert, The Equity Committee, The Middle Ring.
Louise a peacemaker-come on, Alicia, give us a break! She was happy to throw the suburbs onto the bus--didn't care what the board's policies did to children and families. And don't forget, she is part of the Meck ACTS triumvirate.
I had a telephone conversation with Louise one evening after a contenious school assignment hearing. She just could not see the issue with a middle class neighborhood changing middle school assignments 3 straight years and not due to new school construction. She said CMS needed our neighborhood to keep these schools from looking too bad on public test scores.
As Southerners say about these kind of people "bless their heart".
Louise came very close to getting our neighborhood middle schoolers changed from a school within 3 miles of our homes to one 8 miles away--said of our kids "they need a little diversity". This was a surprise proposal on her part--no discussion with the neighborhood beforehand, nor apparently, with the CMS assignment gurus.
OK. I get your point. However, if I had to chose I'd still chose Louise Woods over Molly, Willehemia, Arthur, Vilma, George, The Coach, The Reverend, The Rabbi, the Middle Ring, the Equity Committee and the rest of the leftist peanuts gang.
Alicia
In a perfect world we wouldn't have to choose--none of them would be involved. Alas, Charlotte's little world is far from perfect.
Alicia,
H - None of the above.
We don't need humility. We need people with balls enough to dump diversity, income and where a child lives to get things done.
Anything less is a waste of time and resources.
Alicia, I am getting concerned that you are evolving into the dreaded, "we are teachers, we have to save the world" mindset.
Educrats and politicians love your type. You can help them raise tons and tons of new tax money for their toys for just pandering "it's for the children". You may get 10% of the new money but the politicians and educrats get their huge cuts for their "legacies".
Hey Alicia,
Thanks for standing up for Louise in the face of all of her conveniently anonymous detractors rehashing their old stories. Get over it folks! Just because you disagreed with Louise doesn't mean you need to keep bashing her. That's middle school stuff.
Oh, Bill.
Oh, Pamela. Didn't you serve on the Equity Committee?
I might want to stifle it before I get myself into more trouble.
Warm Regards,
Alicia
9:37
I led Meck ACTS in a dance protest outside of the government center because I thought it was stupid for CMS to waste their time and resources designing and implementing standardized pay-for-performance tests in modern dance and marching band.
Shoot me.
Alicia
Hey Alicia,
These folks know as little about MeckACTS as they do about Louise. Don't worry about them. We don't.
9:37
I think forced busing is the worst thing we've ever inflicted on school children. I survived two highly contentious boundary reassignment controversies in two different neighborhoods within a 4 year period. CMS lied to my second neighborhood which was abruptly reassigned on June 9th - after the school year ended - without warning in order to "save" another school. Molly Griffin and The Middle Ring were part of the underhanded plot. A year later, I transferred my youngest child into private school. 2 years after this, my oldest child followed suit. I had enough.
I think most American's value the ideal of diverse schools. A lot of native Charlotteans believe that forced busing was the ONLY way to realize this goal. I happen to prefer strong magnet schools that were primarily established in the 1970's to encourage VOLUNTARY integration. Louis Woods is of a time and place that is foreign to me. However, even she and I share areas of common ground and mutual agreement which is preferable to all out war.
Alicia
9:45
From my perspective, Molly Griffin was not a truthful, straightforward or honest CMS leader. She had a philosophic and political agenda and was not forthcoming in her actions in regarding the reassignment of my neighborhood. She did a good job hosting dinner parties at her house with leaders of The Middle Ring and honorable guests including Dr. Gorman. In retaliation, Ken Gjertsen and Trent Merchant pulled a fast-one reassigning the Thornhill neighborhood in the middle of the summer while Molly was on holiday in Europe.
At least Louise Woods was straight-up with you. To my knowledge, Louise never pulled this kind of crap.
Alicia Durand
Are you kidding me were is Kojo's seat? He is the only one left out of the festivas. English is a IDIOT with no knowledge of education. Heath you just showed your cards by bringing in the Chamber along with Bolyn ad really Bill Anderson. SUCH a HUGE conflict of interest. These choices wll actually hurt your groups , because people who actually want to help wont be associated with that in bred group.
3:41- Spot on the conflicts are glaring. Heath has left Nevada , but still has been easily influenced in Mecklenburg rather quickly. Judge Manning should have a nice time with this ethnic cleansing group thats formed. My best guess is the state will not allow these groups to ever form without public access.
Post a Comment