CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - Class starts Monday for the Charlotte Mecklenburg school (CMS) district and the school system still needs about 100 teachers. Most of the vacancies are in Elementary schools and in subjects like Math and English as a Second Language.
New Superintendent Dr. Heath Morrison says he is excited about the start of the new school year and knows there will be challenges.
"There's going to be mistakes," Morrison said. "But I don't want those mistakes to be mistakes that could have been planned for that was through any lack of preparation, so we are not going to be perfect but we are going to be pretty darn excellent."
Parents and students can expect some changes this school year. Teachers will stress literacy. They want to prepare students for the new way of testing. CMS Deputy Superintendent Ann Clark gave an example of how students will be tested in the future.
"We learning in Kindergarten 1+1 is 2," Clark said. "Now our students are expected to explain why 1 +1 is 2."
CMS hopes if students learn more literacy, it will help them verbalize each concept.
Also more ninth grade teachers will be hired. This will allow class size in that grade to decrease.
"That's excellent," CMS Parent Caroline Mensa said. "Because when I was going to school - it was a class of 20 not 35 or 40 - One on one with the teachers is a great thing."
This year CMS will phase in B.Y.O.T. Bring your own technology. By the end of this year students will be able to bring their own IPads, laptops and other technology to learn the 21st century way.
Some parents are concerned about that change.
"I don't know if I'm crazy about that," Mensa said. "Because I don't know how they are going to monitor the students from getting on Facebook or playing games or things like that. If they are using it for school work - great."
CMS says if you still have questions about the first day of school - call the CMS hotline at 980-343-3628.
