The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education voted 5-4 on Tuesday night to terminate Superintendent Crystal Hill "with convenience," a contract term that lets the board end her employment without stating a cause and leaves her entitled to severance. Later the same night, the board released an 18-page public report on the investigation it had run into Hill over the summer. The report says the review "did not find evidence of improper conduct by the Superintendent."
Board member Charlitta Hatch, District 1, made the motion. Dee Rankin, District 3, who had become chair only hours earlier when Stephanie Sneed, District 4, gave up the post in a statement to WSOC-TV, counted five hands for and four against and said, "It's approved." Hill had been in the building during the board's closed session but was not at the dais when the meeting began, WFAE reported.
Voting to terminate: Hatch; Rankin; Liz Monterrey Duvall, at-large; Sneed; and Shamaiye Haynes, District 2. Voting against: Monty Witherspoon, at-large; Lenora Shipp, at-large; Anna London, District 6; and Cynthia Stone, District 5. WFAE, Charlotte's public radio station, reported the names the same night.
Under her contract, Hill is entitled to a full year of severance, about $340,000, because she was not fired for cause, WFAE reported. Deputy Superintendent Melissa Balknight, who has already announced she will retire Jan. 1, 2027, will serve as interim superintendent until then, by a unanimous vote, WCNC-TV reported. The board did not discuss a search for a permanent superintendent in open session.
The firing comes six weeks after the board returned Hill to her job on Aug. 11. It had suspended her with pay on June 17 while an outside law firm, Brooks Pierce, investigated what the board's report describes as concerns about "workplace culture, certain personnel decisions, the handling of vacant positions, and district contracting." Hill told WFAE's Charlotte Talks in September that she had been told the allegations involved misuse of federal funds, a hostile work environment and conflicts of interest over vendor contracts, and that the investigation found no wrongdoing. The board's report agrees on that last point: it "did not identify conflicts of interest or improper activity related to contracting by the Superintendent."
It also comes a week after Hill sent the board a memo, first reported by WBT radio, accusing Sneed of arranging for district money to reach a consultant through Poyner Spruill, the Raleigh law firm the board hired in February for its teacher-housing project. On Friday the Mecklenburg County district attorney asked the State Bureau of Investigation to look into "financial irregularities" at CMS, and the state auditor's office has said it is looking at the district, WFAE reported. None of those allegations has been proven, and Sneed has not publicly responded to the memo.
The memo's central claim concerns the housing project. Hill wrote that Poyner Spruill was paying a consulting firm, Qonnect LLC, $30,000 a month under its CMS contract, and that Qonnect is owned by Raki McGregor, who until 2025 held a seat on Hill's cabinet as the district's chief executive in residence. District records released in response to a public records request by WFAE show the firm billed the board $180,000 for that consultant's retainer between February and July. The records show what was billed. They do not establish who arranged it or whether any rule was broken. The district attorney's request to the SBI covers "alleged financial irregularities within transactions involving" CMS since the start of the current fiscal year and is "not limited to a single party or entity," WBTV reported.
How the item got on the agenda
The termination was added to the agenda at the start of the meeting, on Hatch's motion, by a 5-4 vote. The vote on the termination itself came about an hour later. A separate item to consider removing Sneed as chair, which Stone, Witherspoon and Shipp had asked to put on the agenda earlier in September, was dropped 8-0 as moot once she had resigned it. Later in the evening the board elected Monterrey Duvall vice chair over Shipp, again 5-4.
Hatch read from the investigation report after the vote. Stone, London and Shipp, all of whom had voted no, said they had not seen it. The board then voted 9-0 to discuss it in public at its next meeting, Oct. 13.
Each member spoke to the motion before the vote, except Rankin, who presided. The quotations below are from the meeting.
The five who voted to fire
Charlitta Hatch, District 1. Hatch said the board needed "to take a stand to say enough is enough" and make "bold changes" to refocus on students rather than on "the media, the news, the group chats." "We're operating as employers," she said. "If a principal were suspended and came back in the media, what we are saying as a board is that that is OK, and that that is what we expect."
Liz Monterrey Duvall, at-large. "I think the next 90 days will be crucial as we work to rebuild trust and strengthen our organization," Monterrey Duvall said. "I don't want us to mistake organizational challenges for institutional failure." Near the end of the debate she implied that Hill, too, may have wanted the separation, and said the board could not say more. "We're just assuming that this person didn't want it as well," she said. "So I just want to put it out there, that it's both sides, and we can't say a lot as employers."
Shamaiye Haynes, District 2. Haynes said the decision "was not made in haste" and pointed to Sneed's resignation from the chair as evidence the board would change its own leadership when needed: "Our chair voluntarily resigned because she understood how difficult it might be perhaps to move forward." She acknowledged the margin. "We know that this vote was a 5-4 vote, but also it gives us a basis and a place of strength to move ahead." During the same debate, speaking about the emails from her colleagues that had called for Sneed's removal, she said, "No one board member's opinion is going to weigh over mine. This is a democracy."
Stephanie Sneed, District 4. Sneed did not address the memo. She spoke about the board's conduct and her own safety. "To have people threaten me, that I have to be afraid to walk out my front door, that's not being focused on students," she said. She called the public reaction to the board "a frenzy" and said, "Look at the adults."
Dee Rankin, District 3. Rankin presided and did not speak to the motion.
The four who voted no
Lenora Shipp, at-large. Shipp told the room she had spent more than 35 years in CMS as a teacher, assistant principal and principal, and seven on the board. "I have been here for a superintendent that was terminated. And I know what that means when we do this." She pointed to the departures already announced in the district's cabinet: "We have several cabinet staff that will also be leaving." Then she asked, "Do we really have children in the center of all that we're doing?" Haynes interrupted to answer "Yes," The Charlotte Optimist reported.
Cynthia Stone, District 5. Stone said she was "going to publicly state my support for Dr. Hill." She tied the board's trouble to changes it made to its own staff in January and February, which she did not describe, and which she said she voted for "with the understanding that board leadership had developed a clear path forward, but that's not proved to be the case." She listed what is pending, without elaborating on the first item. "We've got non-compliance grievances, we've got SBI, and we've got an audit coming from our state auditor. Just seems to me the wrong time to change horses. Just seems to me that what we are doing is creating our own problems."
Anna London, District 6. London was brief. "I am extremely concerned, but I'm committed to the leaders and the staff and the students and the families who will be here after this vote is done and help rebuild."
Monty Witherspoon, at-large. In April the board rejected Hill's first budget 8-1; Witherspoon was the one yes. On Tuesday he called the vote "a sad moment in the history of CMS." "Quite frankly, this board has spiraled into complete chaos. This board is dysfunctional. This board is broken," he said. Monterrey Duvall raised a point of order, asking whether the remark was germane; Rankin let him continue. "I hope that the residents of this county hold this board accountable at every stop and turn," Witherspoon said. "I hope that the press continues to ask questions, ask for freedom of information."
What the board did not say
No member of the majority stated a cause. "With convenience" means none was required. The public report describes an investigation that ran from May 19 to Aug. 25, took 86 interviews, reviewed more than 1.5 million documents and emails, and has cost about $379,000 so far, with a final invoice from Brooks Pierce still to come. It lists 14 closed sessions on personnel since April 14. It does not mention Tuesday's vote.
Hill did not respond to WFAE's request for comment Tuesday. Balknight's retirement date is Jan. 1. So are the departure dates of the district's chief financial officer, its chief operating officer and an associate superintendent for human resources, WFAE has reported; the chief human resources officer resigned this month. The board did not say Tuesday who leads the district after that.
It meets again Oct. 13, when it has promised to discuss the report in public.