The firing of Superintendent Crystal Hill marks the latest turn in a saga of controversy that has mired North Carolina’s second-largest school district, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Finger-pointing and months of board dysfunction have created a spectacle that’s robbed time and focus from school improvement. Beneath the noise is a shortchanged student body whose leadership class has dropped the ball.
The vote to remove Hill wasn’t on Tuesday’s original meeting notice. After a lengthy closed session, one outlet reports, the question of terminating her contract was added to the agenda during the meeting. The 5-4 decision came without much public explanation. At the meeting, one board member remarked that the “board had ‘spiraled into complete chaos’ and become ‘dysfunctional.’”
Hill was placed on leave in June pending an investigation into “administrative and operational oversight.” She was reinstated in August, and the report released this week found no evidence of improper misconduct on her part…