For over 20 years, our community has had the support of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools-Department of Social Services (“CMS-DSS”) Educational Liaisons (“Liaisons”). The four Liaisons are CMS employees housed at Youth and Family Services (“YFS”) and play a crucial role in ensuring our students in foster care have access to the education they deserve and are entitled to under the law. 

 

The Liaisons sit at the critical intersection between the education and child welfare systems, facilitating students’ enrollment, managing Best Interest Determination (“BID”) meetings to allow for school stability, and ensuring immediate enrollment for students in foster care. The Liaisons keep the schools up to date on which students are enrolled in their schools and how to get ahold of other critical parties, like the YFS social worker. To the benefit of both CMS and YFS, the Liaisons routinely participate in student-level meetings, make sure proper documentation makes it to the appropriate people, and serve as an active on-call expert for just about every education-related situation a student in foster care might encounter. In addition to student-level work, the Liaisons train both CMS and DSS staff on the educational rights of students in foster care, and lend their expertise in a variety of community collaborations. CMS is eliminating their positions after June 30, 2026.

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​Sign up to make a public comment during the May 12, 2026
CMS Board of Education Meeting.

• Talking points are included below.

• To be eligible to speak, speakers must register by 5pm on May 11, 2026 using one of the following methods:

  • By completing the Board of Education Public Speaking Sign Up Form;

  • By telephone at 980-343-5163; or

  • By email at boardclerk@cms.k12.nc.us.

• The meeting begins at 6pm at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center.

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Talking Points

 

• For over 20 years, our school system (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools) and our Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services (DSS) has had CMS-DSS Educational Liaison positions to help students experiencing foster care access their education.

• If anything, students experiencing foster care in CMS need more support, not less. They are significantly trailing their peers academically, with grade-level proficiency in math at 38%, grade-level proficiency in reading at 32%, and a four-year graduation rate of only 46%.

• I appreciate CMS’s effort to reduce duplication and improve efficiency, but I’m concerned this change will unintentionally shift specialized foster care coordination work onto already overburdened school social workers.

• Students experiencing foster care are subject to unique federal protections and requirements that demand rapid, cross-agency coordination—not just school-level support.

• The liaison roles provide continuity across school moves; without them, highly mobile students will lose a consistent point of contact.

• A single point of contact at the district will not have the capacity to complete the variety of time-sensitive tasks the liaisons currently handle.

• The work of the CMS-DSS Educational Liaisons is felt deeply across the juvenile court system, child welfare system, and broader community.