BREAKING: CMS board fires Hill; Sneed out as chair

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by Tony Mecia

Moving to distance itself from an ongoing financial investigation on Tuesday, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education fired Superintendent Crystal Hill, while school board chair Stephanie Sneed resigned under pressure as chair.

The leadership shake-ups are an apparent attempt to create a clean break between the board and recent allegations that the district hired a law firm and consultant without proper financial controls.

“There have been a lot of distractions that have been in the media, in the news, and I think that this board needs to take a stand that enough is enough,” said board member Charlitta Hatch. “We need to have full changes in order to refocus on what matters – in the media, in the news, in the group chat, wherever it is – and that is on our students.”

Board member Shamaiye Haynes said: “We clearly are willing to make leadership changes where needed.”

Board member Cynthia Stone said she was concerned about a leadership vacuum: “Just seems to me the wrong time to change horses.”

Board member Monty Witherspoon called it “a sad moment in the history of CMS. … This board has spiraled into complete chaos. This board is dysfunctional. The board is broken.”

The vote was 5-4.

The evening of unexpected drama started about an hour before the 6 p.m. board meeting, when WSOC reported that Sneed was stepping down as board chair. Sneed had been under pressure since last week, when a memo by Hill suggested that Sneed went behind the superintendent’s and full board’s back to hire law firm Poyner Spruill, which in turn hired consultant Raki McGregor on a $30,000-a-month contract.

Then, in another surprise move, the board emerged 30 minutes late from its usual closed session and quickly added an item to the agenda: to fire Hill “for convenience.” Under Hill’s contract, the move means that Hill will receive one year’s salary, and the two will part ways. Hill’s salary is $341,000 a year. She has served as superintendent since 2023.

Hill, who sat by herself at the dais before the board members emerged, was not present for the board meeting. Her seat was occupied by deputy superintendent Melissa Balknight, who announced earlier this month that she would be retiring.

Vice chair Gregory “Dee” Rankin presided over the meeting as the board’s new chair, and the board also elected Liz Monterrey Duvall as vice-chair, replacing Rankin. In her comments, Monterrey Duvall suggested that Hill was amenable to being fired and collecting a separation payment.

The board also voted to release a summary of the investigation into Hill, which cost nearly $400,000. She was investigated by the board over the summer but was largely cleared. The report was not immediately available Tuesday evening.

In the two-page letter sent to WSOC just before the start of Tuesday’s school board meeting, Sneed said she was stepping down as chair. She didn’t address the specifics of the accusations against her. But she complained that instead of a focus on the district’s accomplishments, “too much of the public conversation has been reduced to a narrative of ‘adults behaving badly,’” which she said has “overshadowed meaningful work and the very children we are here to serve.”

“Over these past 30 days, I do not believe matters were given a meaningful opportunity to be appropriately addressed before they unfolded through media leaks and public speculation,” she said in the letter.

In public comments at the meeting, Sneed said, “The frenzy of the public is shameful.”

The leadership shake-up comes a little more than a month after Hill returned to work following being placed on paid leave by the board for two months this summer.

Last week, Hill wrote a stunning 14-page memo with more than 200 pages of attachments that raised questions about whether Sneed had followed contracting policies and state law in hiring a law firm to work on a variety of projects. Records showed that the firm, Poyner Spruill, hired former CMS contractor McGregor, an ally of Sneed’s, at $30,000 a month, and Hill said she doubted that some board members knew of that arrangement.

Last week, Mecklenburg’s district attorney said he requested that the State Bureau of Investigation examine what he called potential “financial irregularities” with CMS.

Sneed is an attorney specializing in employment law. She was elected to the school board in 2022, representing east Charlotte and eastern Mecklenburg County, and re-elected in 2025 to a four-year term. She has been the board chair since December 2023 and previously was chair of the Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

In her letter shared with WSOC, she touted more than a dozen accomplishments in her service on the school board, including championing a record $2.5B school construction bond passed by voters in 2023, supporting teacher housing and getting the community more involved in decisions. Her list also touted that she “connected directly with students, including through carpool karaoke, because hearing their voices also means meeting them in spaces where they can be themselves.”

While stepping down as board chair, Sneed intends to continue on the school board, where she represents east Charlotte and eastern Mecklenburg County. Her term runs through 2029. There is no provision under N.C. law to remove a sitting school board member, short of a conviction for financial improprieties or other crimes.

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