Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools history

Mattoon in 1885 and Doctor Mattoon four years later.

The oldest privately conducted school in Charlotte is O'Donoghue School, established on August 27, 1887, by the Sisters of Mercy, a Roman Catholic religious order, as St Mary's Seminary.

Doctor Alexander Graham became superintendent February 14, 1888, following ten years of teaching at Fayetteville.

When Doctor Barringer left in 1889 to become associated with the University of Virginia, he sold his "Medical School," as it had come to be known, to Doctor John Peter Munroe, who had succeeded him as college physician.

The first business school was opened in Charlotte in December 1891 and called, by its owners L. H. Jackson and R. F. Day, Charlotte Commercial College.

These classes formed the basis for the North Carolina Medical College, chartered in 1892.

There was great elation, according to the Charlotte Observer for May 28, 1896, because of the selection of Charlotte as the site of the new college.

He opened the district’s second school for white students in 1900, the North School, which served students to the 10th grade.

Annie Smith Ross, who began her duties November 11, 1902, as librarian.

The library was absorbed by the Charlotte Carnegie Public Library which began its official existence January 31, 1903, with Mrs.

Specifically, the original part of the present Dilworth School was once a Mecklenburg County school and, had Central High School been built in 1904, it would have been just outside the city limits.

The present name was adopted in 1905 in honor of Dennis O'Donoghue, whose bequest made possible the large building at 531 South Tryon Street, home of the school for many years.

The district expanded in 1907, pulling several county schools into the city district.

A milestone, especially from the standpoint of the student body, was publication of the first high school annual, Snips and Cuts, at Central High School at the close of the 1908-9 season.

The Presbyterian College for Women served Charlotte and surrounding territory well until 1912 when the name was changed to Queens College and the institution removed to the site of the present campus.

Doctor Harry Harding was named superintendent in 1913 and school construction continued during the next decade.

Carnegie donated another $15,000 which was used to add a Children's Department and small auditorium to the original building, which annex was opened April 9, 1915.

"The presidents and officials of the several PTA's of the city schools planned a meeting for April 1, 1917, to form a city Parent-Teacher Council.

Compulsory school attendance became effective in Charlotte in 1919.

In 1920, Alexander Graham High School was built and three years later Central High School was established.

The first school cafeteria was located in the Alexander Graham High School on East Morehead Street and opened about 1921.

While Doctor Mattoon was president, the name Biddle Memorial Institute was changed to Biddle University and, on March 1, 1923, the name was again changed, to Johnson C. Smith University in recognition of generous gifts by Mrs.

A similar council was formed March 20, 1926, by parents of the children attending five schools in Mecklenburg County.

In 1929 this library was brought under the supervision of the librarian of the Charlotte Carnegie Public Library and continued as a branch of the Public Library system.

Restoration of the school system began after an election April 16, 1935, authorizing a special tax of 25 cents on the $100 valuation.

On June 30, 1937, Miss Pierce resigned and James E. Gourley succeeded her with the title of Director.

For several reasons, but principally because the vote was against registration, as required by law, the measure failed to carry and the Charlotte Public Library closed its doors June 30, 1939.

Another election was held May 25, 1940, resulting in the authorization of a maximum tax levy of four cents on the $100 valuation throughout Mecklenburg County, the vote being 10,172 for and 1,966 against.

The school was founded in 1941 by Doctor Thomas Burton, who became first headmaster.

In 1943 the position of assistant director was created, and in August of that year Charles Raven Brockmann was engaged to fill the new position.

Following a survey of the public library needs of Charlotte conducted under the auspices of the American Library Association in April 1944, the name of the institution was legally changed to Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.

On April 23, 1946, an election was held on the question of issuing $600,000 in bonds for new library buildings.

With the help of many, including members of the Junior League, Charles H. Stone, chairman of the Charlotte Park and Recreation Commission, C. W. Gilchrist, and others, the organization was formed November 11, 1947, and opened at 315 North Cecil Street.

The first check from this source was received in October 1948.

In 1950 Mecklenburg was the first county in the state to consolidate several Union Schools into one large educational plant.

On December 13, 1952, the citizens of Charlotte and Mecklenburg authorized the issuance of bonds in the sum of $1,600,000 for new library buildings and equipment.

With these funds, a new main library building replaced the original Carnegie Library building at 310 North Tryon Street and was dedicated November 19, 1956.

Charlotte high school pupils received their first television instruction in 1957.

The voting of this tax brought these colleges under the North Carolina Community College System and gave them their first board of trustees, members of which assumed office May 11, 1958.

On June 30, 1959, residents of Charlotte and Mecklenburg Counties voted by a 2-1 margin in favor of consolidating the two school systems.

On July 1, 1960, the Charlotte City Schools and Mecklenburg County Schools were merged, joining the two largest school districts in the state to form a new city-county school district.

Charlotte, N.C.: Public Library of Mecklenburg County, 1961.

Two months before the Swanns made their appeal, in the same week that President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the 24-year-old Chambers opened a law office on East Trade Street.

In January of 1965, the Swanns joined several other Charlotte families in a lawsuit, Swann v.

The board had closed several historically Black schools back in 1966, not long after Swann was filed.

After the NAACP took the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board to court for its failure to desegregate in 1968, the board drafted a new desegregation plan.

Chambers argued Swann before federal judge James McMillan in the spring of 1969.

Bill McMillan, a Second Ward graduate hired by the school system as a race relations specialist, spent the 1970-71 school year visiting schools plagued by racial difficulties at every level.

Decided by the United States Supreme Court on April 20, 1971, Swann v.

Work continued on the desgregation plan and the Board of Education approved a busing plan in July 1974 that was approved by McMillan.

In 1975, McMillan was satisfied that the plan was indeed working and he closed the Swann case, nine years after it was first filed.

Harvey Gantt, the first Black student to attend Clemson University, was elected mayor in 1982, becoming the first African-American mayor of a predominantly white Southern city.

Clark joined the district in 1983 as a teacher of behaviorally and emotionally handicapped children at Devonshire Elementary and has served as a teacher, principal and in various administrative positions before assuming the superintendency.

International pressure combined with internal upheaval led to the eventual lifting of the ban on the African National Congress, the major Black party in South Africa, and the release from prison of Nelson Mandela in 1990.

Mandela later became the first Black president of South Africa, in 1994.

Davison Douglas, Reading, Writing, and Race: The Desegregation of the Charlotte Schools (University of North Carolina Press, 1995)

The Swann attorneys announced in October 1997 that they would join the case to fight the Capacchione suit, saying that the school system had not fully desegregated and should not be released from court-ordered desegregation.

In March 1998, United States District Judge Robert Potter reactivated the Swann case and consolidated it with Capacchione’s suit.

Frye Gaillard, The Dream Long Deferred: The Landmark Struggle for Desegregation in Charlotte, North Carolina (Briarpatch Press, 1999)

On June 7, 2000, the Fourth Circuit Court heard the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools desegregation case.

The Board of Education continued to work on a desegregation plan based on the family-choice framework, ultimately approving a new student assignment plan in July 2001 that withstood legal challenges.

On April 15, 2002, the United States Supreme Court announced that it would not revisit the Swann/Cappachione cases and related petitions, allowing the Fourth Circuit's approval of the district's student-assignment plan to stand.

Stephen Samuel Smith, Boom for Whom?: Education, Desegregation, and Development in Charlotte (State University of New York Press, 2004)

In April 2005, Doctor Pughsley announced that he would retire in June.

Foxx became Charlotte’s second Black mayor in 2009, and four years later was selected by President Barack Obama to be United States Secretary of Transportation.

In 2010, over vehement community objections, the school board voted to close the predominantly Black E.E. Waddell High School, shutter three of the west side’s four middle schools, and abruptly transform eight west-side elementary schools into K-8 schools.

In September 2011, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools won the Broad Prize for Urban Education.

In May 2012, the Board of Education announced that Doctor Heath E. Morrison would assume the leadership of the district in July.

The Board of Education announced in December 2016 that Doctor Clayton M. Wilcox had been selected as the new superintendent.

Pamela Grundy, Color and Character: West Charlotte High and the American Struggle over Educational Equality (University of North Carolina Press, 2017)

The vision of CMS is to lead the community in educational excellence, inspiring intellectual curiosity, creativity, and achievement so that all students reach their full potential. (C-M Board of Education, 2018)

In August 2019, the Board of Education chose Earnest Winston as the new superintendent.