Elizabeth Trosch came before the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education on Tuesday with nearly two decades of juvenile court experience and a precise accounting of what the district's investment had returned.

"When I first became a judge, the kids that I saw in foster care, they were failing out or they were truancied out of school," she said. "And the kids that are in foster care in Mecklenburg County today, because of these resources and investments, are thriving and succeeding."

District Court Judge Trosch was one of four advocates who addressed the board on behalf of four CMS-DSS educational liaison positions that had been recommended for elimination in the district's original 2026-27 budget proposal. The board voted unanimously to approve the amended budget Tuesday night, with the liaisons restored.

How They're Getting Paid For

The restoration was one of six strategic adjustments presented by Chief of Staff Beth Thompson as part of the superintendent's amended budget recommendation.

"This amended budget includes a reinstatement of four DSS liaison positions," Thompson told the board, walking through a slide that showed the changes against the original proposal.

The funding came from restructuring — not new money. The six adjustments included eliminating $2.4 million allocated to the Capturing Kids Hearts program, with $1.6 million redirected to social-emotional learning and $800,000 set aside for an SEL services request for proposals. A $100,000 reallocation expanded family engagement support. The district also updated its state salary assumption from 3 percent to 5 percent, fully funded through existing tradeoffs. Teacher-position adjustments at Charlotte Virtual, Cochrane Collegiate, and Hidden Valley rounded out the set.

Why Four People Became the Night's Loudest Story

The positions had been included in the April budget the board rejected 8-1, with advocates warning they were essential to educational continuity for foster-care students across Mecklenburg County. Approximately 400 students rely on the bridge the liaisons build between CMS and the Department of Social Services — and the liaisons serve students in custody of other counties as well.

At Tuesday's meeting, four speakers arrived specifically to argue for the positions' restoration.

Stephanie Klitsch — co-director of the Education Law Program at Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy and co-chair of the Foster Care and Education Work Group of Mecklenburg County's Model Court Advisory Committee — described what institutional loss would look like in practice. "They are embedded in both CMS and DSS, adeptly and efficiently bridging the education and child welfare worlds," she said, "ensuring that students experiencing foster care are identified, supported, and not lost between agencies."

Frank Crawford, Director of Advocacy for the Children's Alliance — a network of roughly 40 public and private agencies in Mecklenburg County — asked the board to hold specific children in mind. He described a 13-year-old named Derek who had attended 11 different schools and was reading at a fifth-grade level. He described a kindergartner named Gina whose first five years had been marked by domestic violence and neglect. "Children in foster care will suffer without these positions," Crawford said.

Daniel Brown, an attorney with the Education Law Program at Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy, made the case that these four specifically cannot simply be replaced. "This results in a level of real-time communication and coordination that I have not experienced while supporting students in other school districts," he said. "Their work and the way they do it is neither easily replaced nor delegated."

Then Trosch spoke.

She introduced herself as Mecklenburg County's longest-serving juvenile court judge and spent her two minutes documenting what the county had built over twenty years. The liaisons, she told the board, are not administrative workers — they are subject-matter experts in child welfare and education law whose interdisciplinary roles generate knowledge that flows in both directions between systems.

"These are meaningful investments that ensure quality outcomes for kids in foster care," she said. "Over these 20 years, we have become a national model because of what you have invested in with these liaisons. And other courts across this state look to us to understand how to replicate what we are doing."

The Board's Response

The vote was unanimous. At-Large board member Liz Monterrey Duvall — speaking in closing remarks after the vote — said the budget process this cycle had been unlike any she had experienced in three rounds on the board. She thanked the advocates who had come, named the DSS positions directly, and described the outcome as one she was satisfied with.

"I'm so happy that we were able to redirect those funds," she said, "that we were able to save those four positions that were so critical for our foster children."

What Else Changed

The amended budget carries one significant unresolved piece. Thompson told the board that CMS had received word earlier in the day of an agreement in principle on a state budget that would include an average 8 percent teacher pay raise. The district modeled a 5 percent assumption — fully funded through existing tradeoffs — but will return to the board for another budget amendment once the legislature finalizes the numbers.

The liaisons will be in place regardless of how that conversation resolves.