CHARLOTTE — There is a new task at hand for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board -- finding a permanent replacement for former Superintendent Earnest Winston.
“Moving forward, I think this has to be a community decision and it has to be done correctly,” Dr. Ross Danis said.
Channel 9′s Elsa Gillis spoke with Danis about what’s to come. He has worked in the education world for 43 years, and is the current CEO/President of local nonprofit MeckEd.
When Winston was hired by the board, there wasn’t a national search done. But there was an executive search firm hired to help find his predecessor, Dr. Clayton Wilcox.
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During the search, MeckEd got funding to hold 18 community engagement sessions to hear what the community was looking for, and then shared their findings with the board. Danis said there has to be some level of community engagement this go around and a search.
“We want people to move here to Charlotte and the only way we do that is to convince them that we have a really stable school district. I might add that so many of our young people live in environments that aren’t stable. At least they should go to a school and in a school district that has a certain amount of stability,” Danis said.
He also said finding someone with successful experience in a medium-to-large district is important, though not easy to come by.
“I think there are probably a dozen people who are ultimately qualified for this kind of a job, it’s that big of a deal,” he said.
Hugh Hattabaugh -- former interim superintendent for the district -- will take the reigns next week as the new interim leader. His contract runs through June 2023.
CMS Board Chair Elyse Dashew said Hattabaugh is the right person to lead CMS as they conduct a thorough, nationwide search for a new superintendent.
(WATCH BELOW: CMS Board cites ‘serious mishaps’ for its decision to fire Superintendent Earnest Winston)
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