Superintendent's key advisor is backing school board candidates
Contractor with business ties is supporting 2 candidates who would supervise CMS superintendent Crystal Hill
The following article appeared in the July 21, 2025, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with smart and original local news for Charlotte. We offer free and paid subscription plans. More info here.
A CMS contractor, with close ties to Crystal Hill and Charlotte business leaders, is raising eyebrows by publicly supporting challengers; political payback against critics?
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education voted in March to increase the amount of a contract for executive coaching to $500,000. The husband of the firm’s owner is a key advisor to Superintendent Crystal Hill, has ties to key business executives and is publicly supporting two school board challengers in districts where incumbents had opposed the increase to the contract.
by Tony Mecia
At a school board meeting in March, first-term Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools board member Melissa Easley told her colleagues that she planned to vote against a proposal to increase a contract by $125,000 for executive coaching services in CMS middle schools.
She said the money could be better used, that other programs already did the same thing and that, as a former teacher, she had never heard of the company CMS was hiring, SYDKIMYL Educational Consulting.
“I have never encountered this firm or seen [its] results in our classroom, and I have been in there since 2011. Where is the evidence that this directly impacts our student outcomes?” said Easley, who represents northern Mecklenburg. “… Let’s prioritize the spending that directly affects our students and supports our staff that are already tirelessly working in schools.”
Easley and two other board members opposed the contract boost, but they were outvoted by a five-person board majority that sided with Superintendent Crystal Hill’s administration and approved the change.
Now, two of the three board members who didn’t vote to approve the contract have candidates in their districts who are backed by one of the superintendent’s top advisors: Raki McGregor, who happens to be the husband of SYDKIMYL Educational Consulting’s owner.
McGregor — who separately had his own $13,000-a-month CMS consulting contract for working with Hill — is also a consultant for the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council (CELC), a group of influential CEOs and other leaders of more than 40 of the Charlotte region’s biggest companies, including Atrium Health, Bank of America, Red Ventures, Lowe’s and Duke Energy.
The public involvement in school board races by a CMS contractor and advisor so close to the superintendent — who is supervised by the school board — would be unusual by itself. Top professional staff of local governments typically stay out of local politics.
But throw in the matter of the contract for his wife, and his ties to Charlotte’s most prominent business leaders, and McGregor’s involvement appears to some board members and CMS watchers as heavy-handed political payback against those who were doing their jobs by questioning CMS expenditures.
McGregor appeared last week in a Facebook video posted by Charlitta Hatch when she filed at the Board of Elections to take on Easley in this fall’s election:
(There’s also a third candidate in the race, former high school math teacher Bill Fountain.)
When asked by The Ledger why she was running, Hatch said said she comes from a long line of CMS graduates and that she and her husband have a rising 3rd-grader in CMS — and that her background as the city of Charlotte’s chief data and analytics officer and her pursuit of a doctorate in urban education at UNC Charlotte give her a strong understanding of technology and policy. Hatch, who lives in Highland Creek, is also the former president of the Junior League of Charlotte.
“I’ve known Raki for a while,” she said. “Does he support me? Yes. But did he ask me or convince me or is he backing me? No. This is something I wanted to do.”
Easley, in an interview with The Ledger, says she doesn’t regret anything she’s done on the board: “I stand by what I said and what I questioned. I will continue to question our budget and our line items to make sure we are using our tax dollars effectively.”
McGregor is a former Novant Health executive. He heads CMS’s “executive-in-residence” program, in which the district has received the business expertise of leaders from more than 20 CELC companies in the last three years. A spokeswoman for Foundation for the Carolinas, which lends administrative support to the CELC, says that McGregor “advises [the] CELC on important issues and opportunities within our public school system.” The CELC pays for a portion of McGregor’s CMS contract, she said.
In addition to the CMS contracts, SYDKIMYL also received $600,000 from Mecklenburg County in fiscal year 2025 for “social and emotional learning instruction” in grades K-8, WFAE reported.
McGregor didn’t respond last week to inquiries from The Ledger. His wife told The Charlotte Observer in May: “The work that I’m doing with CMS doesn’t have anything to do with my husband.”
A CMS spokeswoman didn’t reply to questions from The Ledger on Friday.
How much deference to give to superintendent?
The CMS school board had been in a relatively drama-free era following a few tumultuous years of Covid-related school closings, criticism over handling of sexual assault allegations and the ouster of a superintendent. But this November’s election, in which six of nine school board seats are on the ballot, has the potential to ramp up the intrigue. At stake is the leadership of a school system with 140,000+ students and a nearly $2B annual budget — at a time when there are lingering questions from parents about the district’s recent personnel decisions, and as federal education cutbacks could be approaching.
One of the emerging divisions on the board seems to be the amount of deference to give to Hill, who was appointed superintendent in May 2023 on a 6-3 vote. The bloc that voted against the change to McGregor’s wife’s contract — Easley, Summer Nunn and Lisa Cline — seems more inclined to publicly question the CMS administration than the school board majority.
In the March debate over the contract, for instance, board vice chair Dee Rankin, who represents University City, chided Easley for “digging into operations” of the district instead of holding the superintendent accountable for results.
“Sometimes what happens is as board members, we are so passionate, we begin to sometimes dig into operations, which is not our role,” he said. “… If this is a need that the district feels needs to be done, then I support that. … We still have to be fiscally responsible, but sometimes, we say we’re trying to be efficient, but what we’re doing is digging into operations.”
At the same meeting, board chair Stephanie Sneed said: “I do think it is important for us to be fiscally responsible, but it’s also our responsibility to listen to what staff needs.”
‘We keep receipts’
McGregor also has ties to the school board race in south Charlotte/Steele Creek, in the district represented by Nunn — who was one of two sitting board members to vote against Hill’s appointment as superintendent two years ago and sided with Easley against McGregor’s wife’s contract increase.
McGregor is the chairman of the board of workforce development nonprofit Charlotte Works, and the organization’s CEO, Anna London, filed to run for Nunn’s school board seat on the first day of filing, July 7.
In a LinkedIn post the same day, McGregor congratulated her on her candidacy — while saying his support was “entirely in my personal capacity as a private citizen,” and not as a representative of CMS, Charlotte Works or the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council’s executive-in-residence program that he leads.
In the post, he called Hill “the most gifted, student focused leader in the nation” and added: “This is not an opinion, we keep receipts — all facts.”
Four days later, Nunn announced on Facebook that she would not run for a second term, a decision she explained in part by decrying “politics”: “I want to be very clear—I will not put my career, my family or my reputation at risk because of politics, especially when politics get in the way of doing what’s right for kids, teachers and our community.”
She said that “dysfunction remains” and noted, referring to London, that “a candidate from my own party filed to run before I had the chance to share my decision.”
School board races are nonpartisan, meaning that political parties are not listed on the ballot. Nunn and London are both Democrats. School board candidates sometimes get a boost from endorsement lists from political parties.
Two other candidates, Toni Emehel and Justin Shealy, filed for the seat on Friday.
Challenging those ‘who ask tough questions’
In another south Charlotte district, Cline — an incumbent who is a retired CMS teacher and assistant principal who voted against Hill’s appointment and McGregor’s wife’s contract — is facing a newcomer, former teacher Cynthia Stone.
Cline says she has no evidence that McGregor is targeting her, but added: “It’s very odd that the three people who voted against Raki McGregor’s wife’s contract are being challenged. I think there’s something up with that.”
She said she is proud of her record, which includes “asking questions about money — where is the money going?” She said she is running for re-election because she still has work to do: “I feel like I’m just now hitting my stride, I’m helping people, and parents know to reach out to me.”
Stone, in response to emailed questions from The Ledger, said: “I want to go on record that I have no connection to Mr. McGregor or his organization. It seems he’s been challenging School Board members who ask tough questions, hoping to push them off of the Board. As one who’s not afraid to ask tough questions, those are the people with whom I hope to work if elected.”
If elected, she says she hopes to focus on student safety, mental health, teacher retention and transparency, among other issues.
Weighed in on superintendent choice, too
McGregor’s public support of school board candidates isn’t the first time that he has ruffled feathers in regard to his position with CMS.
Before Hill was appointed superintendent, McGregor was brought into CMS by interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh.
Two weeks before the board vote to name a replacement, McGregor emailed the school board, throwing his weight behind the selection of Hill — a move some school board members viewed as inappropriate, given his position as a key advisor to the district.
In the email, which is publicly available as a result of a public records request, he praised Hill’s leadership and innovation. “I have worked on many teams and with many leaders, and she stands out as an extraordinary, intentional and values-driven leader. … I hope we can continue this forward motion without interruption under Dr. Hill,” he wrote.
In response, board member Thelma Byers-Bailey wrote: “THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!!! From your keyboard to GOD’s EARS.”
Tony Mecia is executive editor of The Charlotte Ledger. Reach him at tony@cltledger.com.
Related Ledger article:
“An executive boost to the CMS workforce” (🔒, Jan. 5, 2024)
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