Board hears monitoring report on Goal 4: postsecondary readiness; staff says class of 2024 exceeded target

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools staff presented the board with a monitoring report on Goal 4 — the district’s postsecondary readiness measure that tracks whether graduates are enrolled, enlisted or employed. The staff update, delivered by Beth Thompson, chief of strategy and innovation, reported that the district’s 2023–24 graduating cohort exceeded its projected target for students meeting at least one of seven indicators.

Why it matters: Goal 4 is one of four student-outcome governance goals the board adopted. The indicators — including grade-level proficiency on end‑of‑course (EOC) assessments, ACT/SAT performance, and higher-education credit — are used to measure whether students leave high school with pathways to postsecondary education, the military or employment.

Thompson said the graduating cohort exceeded the projected target for 2023–24: the board’s projected target for the cohort was 74 percent and the reported actual was 76 percent. The staff presentation highlighted specific indicator changes: the percentage of students meeting indicator 1 (grade‑level proficiency on at least three required EOC assessments) rose by 10.4 percentage points to 42.2 percent; indicator 2 (ACT/SAT measure) rose slightly; indicator 3 (higher-education credit indicators) increased by 4.4 percentage points to 43.9 percent. Staff also reported that 2,366 students — about 24 percent of the graduating cohort — did not meet any of the seven indicators.

Staff described multiple strategies credited with the improvements. Those strategies included research‑based, standards‑aligned curriculum; focused instructional practice and professional development; and changes to district leadership structure that place school performance assistant superintendents with grade-band responsibility and dedicated high‑school staff. Thompson said the reorganized staffing gives district leaders deeper, sustained focus on high-school performance and helped align curriculum and instruction.

The report emphasized new and continuing tactics to increase postsecondary attainment: promoting four‑year course planning through Naviance (the district is activating course planners and expects course‑plan activation to rise as current eighth graders are engaged); partnerships to broaden access to college credit (including Central Piedmont Community College and a district-run virtual academy); use of North Carolina Virtual Public School options and Central Piedmont “academies” that bring college courses to selected high schools; and targeted ACT/SAT supports including free online diagnostics and tutoring through Edgenuity, library partnerships for resources, and school‑level ACT plans based on PreACT results.

Board members pressed staff on predictive measures and supports for students who had not met indicators. Thompson identified course enrollment and GPA in CTE pathways, course planner completion, interest inventories, and prior EOG performance as predictive signals for eventual indicator attainment. She also reported the district’s counselor-to-student ratio at about 1:300 and said the district leverages career‑college coaches through a cost‑share agreement with Central Piedmont to extend counseling capacity.

The presentation included counts of enrollment in advanced coursework from the fall: more than 11,000 students enrolled in AP courses, about 2,188 in IB, roughly 5,000 in College and Career Promise (dual-enrollment through Central Piedmont), and roughly 800 in Cambridge courses. Thompson said those enrollment figures and outreach about advanced-course options are part of the strategy to raise indicator 3 (postsecondary credit).

Board members asked detailed backward‑looking and forward‑looking questions about which strategies produced gains, how the district tracks students after high school, and how the district will increase course‑plan activation (the district said the expectation is 100 percent activation over time and noted the plan is fluid and can change to meet student interests).

Staff said they would continue to refine benchmark‑to‑instruction responses at the teacher level, to expand access to advanced-course options across schools and to formalize measures for tracking students post‑graduation in partnership with higher education and employer partners. The board requested follow‑up information for a future monitoring report, including formal plans for collecting post‑graduation employment and college‑persistence data.

The board did not take an immediate action vote; the monitoring report was presented for discussion and follow‑up.