BREAKING: CMS superintendent likely to be ousted
Special school board meeting called for tomorrow to discuss fate of Earnest Winston, who has led Charlotte's public schools since 2019; More turnover at top job ahead?
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School board has five-vote majority to fire superintendent if he doesn’t resign, board member tells WFAE
by Cristina Bolling and Tony Mecia
Earnest Winston is expected to be ousted as superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools tomorrow, with a majority of school board members reportedly asking for his resignation, multiple media outlets are reporting today.
The school board has scheduled an emergency meeting for 12:30 p.m. tomorrow in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center to discuss “matters related to superintendent contracts and attendant personnel items.” (The meeting will be live-streamed on the board’s Facebook page.)
Winston, who’s been CMS superintendent since August 2019, would be the fourth superintendent in the last 10 years to last fewer than three years in the job. The news was first reported this morning by WBT’s Brett Jensen on Twitter.
Reversal a year later: Winston’s most recent contract, which the school board approved 8-1 in February 2021, would require the board to pay Winston two years’ salary, or $576,800. At the time that that contact was approved a little over a year ago, board members praised Winston’s leadership:
Board chairwoman Elyse Dashew said: “Part of why we’ve held together as a family through this nightmare of ... this pandemic is because of your integrity and your style of leadership.”
Board member Carol Sawyer said at the time that the new contract was “a commitment to pursuing the path that we’re on because we’ll never get where we want to go if we change paths frequently.”
‘Dastardly deed’: School board member Ruby Jones told WFAE today that five of the board’s nine members are ready to fire Winston if he won’t resign. She said she opposes the move, which she called a “dastardly deed” that was “sprung suddenly” by Dashew.
Winston hasn’t made a public comment today, but he Tweeted a quote from former President Barack Obama:
Winston joined CMS as a teacher in 2004 after a career as a newspaper reporter. He started in education as an English teacher at Vance High School (now called Julius Chambers High School) and rose through the administrative ranks to become CMS chief of staff in 2012. He was named interim superintendent after former superintendent Clayton Wilcox’s suspension and resignation in July 2019, and board members made the appointment permanent a month later.
State officials had to sign off on Winston’s appointment because North Carolina typically requires district administrators to have experience as a school principal and an advanced degree in school administration. There are more than 140,000 students in CMS schools and the district is the second largest in the state, with an annual budget of $1.7B.
School board members said they were looking for stability and continuity when they hired him with no national search or a consideration of other internal candidates.
“The reason we are looking internally is that lots of times when you go outside and look externally, superintendents have a tendency to bring something in differently,” then-school board chair Mary McCray told The Observer after Winston’s August 2019 appointment. “And we feel like we’re on a great course and we want to stay that course.”
A statement from the board at the time cited Winston’s “strong experience, steady dependability, constant commitment to all children, deep belief in collaboration and a leadership style that puts listening first.” It added: “We believe this decision reflects the community's desire for stability, for calm guidance and clear focus on what matters most — our students and their teaching and learning.”
Winston is a likable, friendly personality with a leadership style heralded by many as being easy to work with and a change from his predecessor Clayton Wilcox, who faced accusations he made racist and sexist comments to some staff members.
But Winston’s likability didn’t earn him many points with some parent groups who believed Winston should have recommended that board members reopen schools earlier during the pandemic.
Filled with challenges: Winston’s term as superintendent has been inarguably challenging, as he’s had to manage leading through a pandemic and the controversial decisions about whether to keep school buildings closed, and the plummeting test scores that came as a result.
In recent weeks, school board members have voiced frustration with Winston over the district’s low test scores and an apparent lax response to truancy problems. And Winston and his staff have seemed to bungle some high-profile tasks like halting the rollout of $442,000 in clear backpacks for high schoolers due to warnings that they could contain hazardous chemicals.
During his tenure, CMS was criticized in a number of other controversies, including its handling of reports of sexual assaults and the increases in the number of weapons found at schools. On his watch, CMS butted heads with county commissioners over school funding, prompting commissioners chairman George Dunlap last year to criticize him in unusually personal terms as a thinly qualified former newspaper reporter and ask: “The question — and nobody wants to face this — is do we have the right people in leadership in CMS?”
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Contributing photographer/videographer: Kevin Young, The 5 and 2 Project