At the Dec. 13 Board of Education meeting, Interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh provided an update on district consolidations, Pre-K-8 schools and other changes made at the start of the school year. The changes were made after the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education’s comprehensive review in 2010.

Hattabaugh told the Board that it was still too early in the year to fully analyze whether the changes have helped increase academic achievement. The results for academic growth will come at the end of the year with state testing and other data, he said. But he offered the Board a wide range of other data that are indicators of the changes’ impact. That data included information on suspensions, staffing, Title I status, grant allocations and athletics.

“The biggest question of all, and the most important one, is: Did we do the right thing? Did we make choices that helped our students and strengthened our schools?” Hattabaugh said. “The short answer is, we don’t know yet. It’s been less than a semester since we began these changes – not enough time to make a definitive assessment. We need to see the academic achievement measures before we can know for sure. But we have shared some preliminary indicators with you tonight.”

View the Board of Education report and supporting data.