Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools School District

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (abbreviated CMS) is a local education agency headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina and is the public school system for Mecklenburg County. With 132,000 students enrolled, it is the second-largest school district in North Carolina and the twentieth-largest in the nation. The system is best known nationally for its role as the respondent in the landmark 1971 Supreme Court decision Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, or school board, consists of 9 members--3 at-large and 6 from districts. Before 1995, the board had been elected entirely on an at-large basis, but this was changed after it was discovered nearly all of the board members lived in the eastern part of the county. Members serve staggered four-year terms; the at-large members are elected in the year before presidential elections and the district members are elected in the year after presidential elections. Although school board elections are nonpartisan, the district members are elected from the same districts as the county commissioners. Read more...