Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools superintendent fired

Driving the news: The board voted 7-2 to terminate Winston after less than three years on the job. 

• Hugh Hattabaugh will be the interim superintendent, starting April 25. It’s a job he knows: Hattabaugh was also CMS’ interim superintendent from 2011 to 2012.

Why it matters: The superintendent oversees a district with about 140,000 students, making it the second-largest in the state. This will be its sixth change in leadership in the past dozen years.

What happened: Before the vote, multiple board members praised Winston’s character and called him a “good man,” emphasizing he didn’t do anything ethically or morally wrong, but said it was time for a new leader. 

They later released his personnel file, which included his most recent performance review, in which board members rated him low on most measures from achieving goals to showing sustainable improvement.

• “I can hold two things in my heart and head simultaneously,” board member Margaret Marshall said. “I can have deep respect and gratitude for Earnest Winston. And at the same time know that we need new leadership to move us in the direction of meeting the needs and aspirations of our students.”
• Board members Thelma Byers-Bailey and Ruby Jones voted against termination. “This is a sad day for me,” Byers-Bailey said. Jones noted Winston’s dismissal was “ramrodded.”

What’s next: Scott McCully was named acting superintendent for the next few days.

• Hattabaugh will keep the job until June 30, 2023, earning $265,000 per year, while the board searches for a replacement.
• “He’s going to stabilize things for us,” school board chair Elyse Dashew said, drawing chuckles from people in the back of the room.

Between the lines: CMS leadership has been a constant churn, with Winston serving as the fifth superintendent in the last decade and seventh in the last 12 years. To an extent, the lack of consistency falls on both the superintendents themselves and the school board. 

At-large board member Lenora Shipp, a longtime educator, wasn’t on the board when they hired Winston, but she told Axios there has been “confidence lost” in leadership on both sides. 

• “We have to look at us [the board] too,” she told Axios. 

Ross Danis, CEO and president of MeckEd, has spent 43 years in public education and been in Charlotte for 6 years. He put the responsibility for Winston’s success on the school board.

• “He gave his best, and as I’ve said before, with the number of superintendents we’ve gone through in a short time, you have to look at the board and ask yourself what’s going on here,” Danis told Axios. “At the end of the day you have to own these decisions.”