Herbert L. White
THE CHARLOTTE POST
Crystal Hill is in a different place as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ superintendent.
Hill, who was named to the position on a full-time position in May, leads the 16th-largest school district and has undertaken new initiatives to improve the education experience of more than 141,000 students. In January, Hill unveiled plans to restructure the district’s leadership framework starting with the 2024-25 academic year. She also hosted strategic planning think tank of CMS stakeholder groups: students, parents, teachers, community groups and district leaders.
In an interview with The Post, Hill discussed her transition to the position after holding the position on an interim basis, community expectations and the role of schools addressing societal issues.
Answers are edited for brevity and clarity.
Topic: Spending a year as CMS’s interim superintendent before her appointment to the job on a permanent basis:
“I don’t think anything can prepare you to be the superintendent, other than being the interim superintendent of the district in which you’re going to work. But I would definitely say that on the day that I was named, I felt physical pressure. I didn’t expect it, but there was a, like, physically, I can feel ‘You are the real person now.’ Before it has an end date of June 30, just a couple of months. But on the day I was named, I physically felt like this is for real.
“And then I think something that was a little bit different is the reaction from the community and internal and external stakeholders, like ‘Yes, you’ve been in the interim, but now it’s for real. It’s just different.”
Topic: Dealing with the weight of expectation making the transition to superintendent and being the first Black woman to hold the position:
“Before I was in charge, but there was an end date to me being in charge. And then suddenly, it’s, ‘Oh, my goodness, you are leading, for real for real, the 16th largest district in the United States. Oh, and by the way, you’re the first African American female to do that.’ That adds another level of weight, that there are certain expectations, and then the pressure of being the first. It was just, it was a lot that I had, that I did not anticipate.”
Topic: Establishing stability in a job that has churned six superintendents in the last 12 years:
“Size matters [but] I think it’s more than just size. I think it’s all of the additional factors that go with it. Certainly, being post-pandemic, there’s a lot of things that are kind of turning with that. Politics plays a huge role from a national standpoint, but then also local politics as well.
“I think there’s a lot of factors here in Charlotte. Media plays a huge part in that, just things that are players that other districts don’t necessarily have to think about when I go to a meeting with my regional superintendents. Some of the things that I’m thinking about or planning for are not necessarily the same things that are on their radar are very similar, but not always the same. There is churn, but I think I just said, ‘Well, I’m going to jump into this.’ I feel like it’s something that I really want to do, that I’m really passionate about, didn’t think that I would ever be passionate about. But obviously, also felt led by the Lord to step into this work. So, I see it as an act of service and I’m just excited about what’s happening and what is to come.”
Topic: Lessons learned since becoming full-time superintendent:
“I think I would say one of the lessons that I’ve learned probably would be your first thought is not always your best thought and what I mean by that is when something happens, you don’t always have to go with the first action or the first reaction or the first response that you have. I think the other thing that I … just in general have a better understanding of our organization and how it works. The different ways that we’re organized, I’m obviously changing a lot of that.
“I think as the interim superintendent, I was getting to know people and listen and all those types of things but I did a deeper level of that during my 90-day plan. [I] learned a lot of things just in general. There’s a long laundry list of things that I’ve learned.”
Topic: restructuring CMS’s leadership and creating a singular education culture:
“One of the things that I was noticing is that we had a lot of inconsistencies across the district, meaning that there was not a core experience or a core student experience that was expected across the district. There were differences in the way to some things were handled in different communities, and you would expect that to some extent. But what started becoming clear is that we were operating more as a model as a district of schools and not a school district.
“The way that we’re currently organized may have worked in the past when we were a little bit more stable. But with nine learning community superintendents, they are my representatives out in the community but that really wasn’t accurate, because those nine people didn’t even report to me. So how could they be representing me in the community, just from a structural standpoint? It just didn’t add up.
“The other thing that we have done is we have a learning community superintendent that’s responsible for anywhere between 15 to 27 schools. Well, that’s a small school district. Where I came from – Cabarrus County – had 32 schools when I left, so having that person responsible for not just the academics, which should be their primary concern, but academics, discipline, human resources, some of finance. They were doing little bits and pieces of the larger district.
“What I quickly found is those people weren’t focused on instruction, positive outcomes for students because they were involved in all of the other swirl things that happened in the district. And so I said, ‘We’re never going to be able to achieve our student outcomes, if I’m not able to provide some level of focus for the people that are in those roles.”
Topic: The biggest challenge in terms of social and economic issues coming to campus and schools’ role in addressing them:
“First of all, schools are a microcosm of the greater community. I think a lot of times people think, ‘Oh, all these things are happening and it’s because of the school.’ No, school is a reflection of our greater community. We’re just a microcosm. The other thing that I would say is there are only things that are within our realm of control.
“The next thing that I would say is that we obviously have to be aware of all of those things that are happening, and make sure that we have systems to support our students and our staff as well, with all of the things that are going on. … When you talk about a student’s hierarchy of needs, if we have students that are struggling with food or home insecurities, you know, they’re not going to be ready to focus on biology, obviously. That’s not new to education. But in terms of the scale in which we’re seeing that, of course, has increased.
“I think one of the things that we have to be prepared for is school also cannot be the answer to everything. School was never designed to solve all of the social and political issues, it’s impossible for us to do that. And we’ve got to stop acting like we can solve them – people [have] got to stop expecting us to solve them. And we’ve got to stop acting like we can solve them.
“But what we do have to do is make sure that we are partnering with other community leaders, in our government, parents, families to make sure that we’re solving and addressing those issues for the benefit of our students, and our staff and our greater community.”
