The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education voted 6-2 on Tuesday to create the committee that will look for its next superintendent, one week after it fired the last one.
The charter for a Superintendent Search Ad Hoc Committee, the group that will oversee the search, was the only action item at a special meeting held on Microsoft Teams. The committee will have four board members, WFAE reported, and Chair Gregory "Dee" Rankin, District 3, told Queen City News he will pick them. The board has not set a timeline.
In the meantime, the district has a leader. Acting Superintendent Melissa Balknight, whose retirement date had been Jan. 1, has agreed to stay until a new superintendent is hired, Rankin told the station.
"This is a process, not an event," said Lenora Shipp, at-large, who made the motion. "I don't want us to rush."
The two no votes
Monty Witherspoon, at-large, and Charlitta Hatch, District 1, voted against it, WFAE reported. Neither said the district should not search. Witherspoon objected to the timing. Hatch wanted the board to say where it would examine its own governance.
"I understand this is an initial step, but it signals the wrong thing to the community, just coming off of termination and so many other factors," Witherspoon said, according to the board's recording of the meeting. "I think we just need to pause."
Hatch asked whether that work belonged in the charter or somewhere else. She wanted the board, she said, "to make sure that we have accountability for ourselves before we bring in somebody else to be accountable to us."
A week earlier the two had been on opposite sides. On Sept. 22, Hatch made the motion to terminate Superintendent Crystal Hill and voted for it; Witherspoon voted against. The firing passed 5-4, as The Mercury reported. No member of the majority stated a cause, and none was required under the contract term the board used. The same night, the board released a report on its investigation of Hill that said the review "did not find evidence of improper conduct by the Superintendent."
Rankin answered Hatch that the board's own work was separate from the search committee and should not be written into the charter. "Those things can take place at the same time," he said, and he committed as chair to working with members on how to do it.
How fast
The members who voted yes struck different notes on speed. Cynthia Stone, District 5, said she did not want the board "to appear that we are rushing through anything." Shamaiye Haynes, District 2, said, "I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time." Vice Chair Liz Monterrey Duvall, at-large, said community involvement "is coded in our charter," and summed up the plan: "We're going to move quickly, but also slowly."
Rankin told Queen City News afterward that the board does not want to rush the search or take too long. He said he hopes to stay near the four to five months that Lisa Cline, a former board member, estimated in an interview with the station on Monday.
Anna London, District 6, did not answer the roll call, and eight members voted. After the vote, the board went into closed session on personnel matters.
The chair who picks the committee
Rankin, who says he will choose the four members running the search, became chair on Sept. 22, when Stephanie Sneed, District 4, gave up the post. This week his own record resurfaced. He pleaded guilty in June 2008 to one count of conspiracy to commit mail, wire and bank fraud, and in 2009 a federal judge sentenced him to five years of probation, the first year in home confinement, federal court records show. Other charges against him were dropped, and he was not ordered to pay a fine or restitution. His probation was set to end in February 2014, and his probation officer wrote that month that he had been compliant. Queen City News, citing an FBI archive, reported that the case grew out of a 2008 investigation of a $20 million mortgage fraud scheme in the Charlotte area.
"That was something that happened 20-plus years ago, and I've learned from all of my different experiences in my life," Rankin told the station. "I've been a man of faith, a family man, and I'm a man of integrity."
Around it
The state auditor's office is investigating the district over alleged financial irregularities, Queen City News reported. Chief of Staff Chasity Dolan is retiring, WFAE reported Tuesday, with her last day Nov. 6, the latest of several senior departures this fall; former Chief of Staff Ingrid Medlock is returning to the job.
The board meets Oct. 13, when it has promised to discuss its report on the Hill investigation in public.