County chairman blasts CMS chief in latest chapter of school funding fight

The fight over Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools funding took an ugly turn this weekend when the Mecklenburg County commissioners’ chairman lambasted the CMS superintendent.

It’s the latest in an increasingly contentious school funding fight that’s split the community for the past month, and doesn’t show signs of stopping soon.

CMS voted to approve its 2021-22 financial request of the county last month. The county is finalizing its budget this month before a vote on June 1. County manager Dena Diorio recommended May 6 that about 11% of the county’s allotment to the district be withheld until it comes up with a plan to decrease gaps between students of color and their white peers and improve student achievement. Officials have been trading barbs ever since.

Elected officials and community members are deeply split — commissioners argue that they haven’t seen enough progress from the district to warrant awarding CMS an increasingly large part of their funding each year, but the school board says it needs every dollar of its ask to serve students, especially after COVID this past school year.

Meanwhile, some CMS students say they feel caught in the middle.

Commissioner’s harsh words for superintendent

Commissioners’ Chairman George Dunlap spoke to the Black Political Caucus over Zoom on Sunday night, expressing disappointment in low student achievement and justifying the county’s proposal to withhold $56 million from CMS next year.

His remarks continued and got more personal — Dunlap criticized CMS leadership, specifically questioning the credentials of Earnest Winston, who was hired to lead CMS in 2019 after working for the district in various capacities since 2004.

“Earnest is a nice guy. But what do you know about Earnest? Prior to 2004, Earnest was a reporter with the Charlotte Observer. That’s what he did!” Dunlap said. “...And when nobody else would come to CMS, they made him superintendent.”

Dunlap went on to say that school leaders “dissed” the Black Political Caucus by not making anyone available to answer questions Sunday night, although CMS board vice-chair Thelma Byers-Bailey read a statement at the start of the meeting that emphasized the withheld funds would adversely affect CMS students and staff.

She also said that if the county votes in favor of holding the funds in contingency, the district “will pursue the avenues available for us to obtain our sufficient funding,” an apparent warning that’s been repeated by other board members in recent weeks.

Dunlap, a former CMS board member, said he interpreted Byers-Bailey’s words as intent to sue the county.

“I don’t take threats lightly. I encourage CMS to take us to court because I’m sure that’s what they’re talking about,” he said. “Because what they’ll find is, number one, they will use all of those dollars that they say they don’t have to educate children to pay for the lawsuit.”

CMS board chair Elyse Dashew released a statement Monday saying CMS is “appalled by the personal attack” on Winston. Dashew repeated that the board of county commissioners is not an “oversight” board for the district, dismissing Dunlap’s comments as irrelevant by that standard. But she still denounced his words as a political distraction, saying they have “no place in public discussion.”

“Although we are disappointed by Mr. Dunlap’s attempted character assassination of our superintendent, we are not disheartened,” she said in the statement. “The work we are doing is too important for us to lose focus on the goal of successful student outcomes and we will continue the work that will bring equity to our schools and to our students.”

The back and forth

The political tug-of-war started when CMS approved its budget in late April and presented its financial request to the county on May 4.

The county historically funds about a third of the district’s budget each year, and each year, as operating costs and needs increase, the monetary ask does too. This year, the district asked Mecklenburg County for $551.4 million.

County manager Dena Diorio presented her county budget proposal a couple of days later, recommending that the commissioners give CMS $532 million and hold $56 million of that amount in contingency funds until CMS devises a strategic plan that specifically outlines how to improve student achievement and close gaps between white students and students of color.

But CMS says its 2024 Strategic Plan already addresses those equity gaps and provides specific targets and metrics by which to measure progress, and that there’s no way to keep making progress without the full amount of money it requested. Additionally, there’s no guarantee that commissioners later vote to release the money.

Meanwhile, North Carolina school districts cannot budget at a deficit, so CMS would have to come up with a plan to fill that funding gap, regardless of whether the $56 million is released later.

Parents, advocates and other stakeholders have spoken out at hearings and protests this past month both in support and opposition of the county’s proposal. At a public hearing, some backed CMS, saying the reduction in funding would only hurt the very students it aims to help. However, local Black faith leaders, some of whom have ties to the Black Political Caucus, held a press conference last week commending Diorio’s proposal.

Emails provided to The Observer show that Black Political Caucus leaders have been emailing school and government officials since at least January, criticizing the district’s failure to better serve students of color.

CMS board members argued this month that the onus doesn’t solely lie with them.

Board member Jennifer De La Jara spoke at the district’s May 11 board meeting about the responsibilities of the county and how its choices impact student achievement. She called on the board to provide housing for CMS students and reduce the number of Charlotte students with asthma due to poor environmental conditions.

“I think we’ve got serious work that takes serious people and good faith partners to align our community goals together if we really want to achieve differences in student outcomes,” she said.

What students and stakeholders say

Rising South Mecklenburg junior Sidney Griffin has been watching the back-and-forth closely.

A member of the youth council that reviewed the CMS budget before it went to a vote, Griffin can’t understand the county commissioners’ logic.

“I just don’t think it makes sense,” she said. “Because if you think that CMS is already struggling on the budget that they have, what makes you think that they have the necessary resources to close the achievement gap if you take away more resources?”

As someone who has two more years at CMS, she said she’s worried about her future education.

“The strides that we were making to close inequity gaps, I feel like all that work will go to waste,” she said. “Since we’re having resources taken away from us, I don’t know what’s going to be our next step — because we were just starting to make some progress.”

John Schubert, who will be a senior at Providence High School this upcoming fall, also disagrees with Diorio’s proposal. In fact, he thinks CMS needs to allocate even more resources to the social and emotional needs of students.

“It’s almost like a ransom, these kinds of terms that she’s laying out,” he said. “I think that it is absolutely imperative that the district fix its achievement gaps for low income students, for students of color, and for students in disadvantaged communities, but it is in no way the place of the county manager to wait to dangle money that the district needs over his head as a way to achieve those goals. I think it’s counterintuitive — and frankly just not her purview.”

He worries about the effects it might have on already disadvantaged students.

“It’s going to hurt the students most because it’s going to have a ripple effect all the way down,” Schubert said. “But it’s especially going to hurt the students that are already at the lower end of that ladder.”

CMS educator and parent Amanda Thompson-Rice shares Schubert’s fears and is calling for collaboration between the school and county boards.

“I’m calling for a truce right now. Nobody is going to win at this battle, and I think the kids are going to lose,” she said. “There’s no way we can defund ourselves out of inequity. So for me, I want both the county and the school board to come to the table and figure out what’s best for our kids.”

As a Black woman who has worked primarily in schools with many low-income students, Thompson-Rice said she understands why some commissioners support the proposal and understands their urgency.

“But I think what’s missing is that this is systemic. Schools do not operate in isolation. Schools are a byproduct of our community. It is easier to point fingers... my question is, what are you doing right now in the community to help our kids?” she asked.

“I think that [the commissioners] are sick and tired of being sick and tired. And if they think that the only way to get the district’s attention is to hold their money, that’s what they’re going to do. So in their mind, this is the only way out. That’s sad, but that’s where we are.”