Virtual Graduations
Supplemental Content
Additional pieces were placed in the virtual graduation playlist in order to add static content to each ceremony.
COVID-19 Response
Read With Me
Back to School
Back to School Adventures
To prepare for the first day of school, the superintendent visited Selwyn Elementary School to help them prepare. During Part One, Dr. Wilcox, Laura Francisco and Earnest Winston assisted the principal with organizing pallets of school supplies. In the second part, they assist our 2014 Teacher of the Year, Ms. Shockley!
Bond Information
Your Bond Dollars at Work
To showcase exactly where and how monies from the bond request will be utilized, we created a short video to illustrate "Your Bond Dollars at Work."
North Star Reading Partners
Teacher of the Year
School Level Gallery
We were able to attain a photograph from each of the 168 school level Teacher of the Year winners. We created a template to show off each teacher's name and school, then added them to a Facebook gallery a handful at a time each day to promote each teacher's achievement via social media. The love that was shown for each teacher was spectacular to see! Click the button to view the gallery
Finalist Profiles
Our team went out to each of the finalists schools to catch them in action and learn more about what motivates them to teach. They range from dreaming of teaching as child to leaving professional careers to move into education. They are testaments to the 9200 colleagues that they represent.
Teacher of the Year Winner
On site and online, we covered the event, streaming it live and created graphics to share the news via social media at the moment of the announcement. This instant was then posted to CMS social, and each of the winner's related posts to let her school and family see the news firsthand.
Senior Stories
A Video for Each High School
Although we try to highlight a senior from each graduating class, we have decided not to wait until graduation season this year. Each week, we've featured a new 12th grader in order to exhibit the great work coming from each of our high schools and encourage other students in our system.
Senior Walks
Rocky River High School's Class of 2017 walked the stage today, but before doing so they walked the halls of Clear Creek Elementary. Several of our high schools visited their elementary and middle feeders wearing their caps and gowns to inspire their younger peers and encourage them to do well in school.
Social Media Support
To support each senior that we showcase, their stories are featured across our social media platforms and on the homepage of the CMS website. We also use these platforms, and the hashtag #CMSco17 to promote remarkable graduates that we were not able to cover for a separate senior story video.
Oh, The Places They'll Go!
We do not produce widgets, we produce career and college ready students. This is our end-of-year piece celebrating the various paths that our graduates will venture upon.
Student Assignment Support
Phase II Live Streams
Our team met the challenge of live streaming 24 different Information Sessions at different locations across the county over the course of 6 days. One evening, we had seven sessions running simultaneously! It was a massive effort, but goes a long way in engendering trust and transparency with our community during a tumultuous process.
Superintendent Interviews
After the announcement of Superintendent Ann Clark's student assignment recommendations, but before the first information sessions, we filmed a short series of videos to help mitigate questions that may arise. We also held three live stream Q&A sessions to answer as many concerns as possible before the town meetings began.
American Education Week
Thank You Notes
We put out a form via social media to encourage community members to thank staff members throughout American Education Week. We received 1643 responses to teachers, administrators, custodians… everyone. These responses were then made into physical cards that were delivered to staff members all across the district.
Progressive Banner
Traditionally, each Day of American Education Week commemorates a different set of staff members. We took a different spin on this by focusing from the inside of the classroom out. This was exhibited by a hand drawn banner series that was added to daily to give recommendations for who to thank that day in person or with one a personalized card.
#CMSsnowEd
Snow Day Quiz Show
Whenever school is canceled for snow, we have a snow day quiz show on Twitter called #CMSsnowEd where we ask a fun, genre-diverse, and challenging question every hour. We did not expect much participation, but wanted to encourage learning, even when school was out. To our amazement, this program is now highly anticipated at the first signs of snow.
#CMSwag Ads
Sometime over the years, students deemed the CMS logo embossed trinkets that we give away for prizes as #CMSwag. We decided to make commercials for them and promoted them to incentive kids to participate in #CMSnowEd. It's amazing to get reminders that a child hasn't received their pencils yet.
Teacher Appreciation Week
Social Media Support
Not only were the Thank You Notes pushed through social, but the entire week was resplendent with messages of appreciation, local news stories and daily interviews of our various staff members. We created the hashtag #CMSTAW2017 to allow everyone to follow along with the action. It also gave us an opportunity to show off some of the cards that were created.
#MeetCMS
Child Nutrition
We all know that our cafeteria staff work hard to feed kids during the school year, but what about during the summer? We follow The Child Nutrition Department's Margaret Cameron around to show summer feeding sites: schools that are open for breakfast and lunch. We also got to board the mobile lunch bus, which travels to low-income communities to provide free lunch for children all summer!
Teacher Assistants
Thanks to Donna Casey, CMS Teacher Assistant of the Year at the time, we were able to be a TA For a Day to highlight just how much these amazing educators do. We showed how much is done to advance literacy outside the classroom, and how TAs like Donna interact with students and teachers to ensure the success of each child. Furthermore, this was done at a pivotal time when TA positions were under fire. We believe this effort helped in showcasing their importance.
Career Development
Career Path Survey
We worked closely with our Career Development Coordinators to develop a survey that would allow us to determine the most popular career paths in CMS. We received over 4,000 responses! We then used the students' top five selections to find professionals in each field to interview about what it will take to traverse that path.
Interviews of Professionals
We received over 4,000 responses to our survey asking for the most popular career paths in CMS. We then used the students' top five selections to find professionals in each field to interview about what it will take to traverse that path. These were a mix of interactive live streams and student interviews.
#CMSummer
Summer Program
This is another NCSPRA award-winning program. For seven weeks during the summer, we provided fun assignments, reading suggestions and weekly events for subjects that participants chose upon signing up for #CMSummer. We aggregated the students' selections to come up with a curriculum and students earned points for successfully submitting assignments. You'll really just have to visit the page and see for yourself!
Virtual Field Trips
Each week, we would take our followers on a virtual field trip to dive deeper into the subject of the week. For instance, for History Week, we did a live-streamed tour of the Charlotte Museum of History. For Science Week, we got a special lesson from Discovery Place. It was just incredible.
Math Around Town
Each week, students could earn points for completing a mission related to that week's subject. Our favorite was Math Week, we went on an adventure all around uptown Charlotte to solve a math riddle that's on a plaque outside of 7th Street Station. We also gave students a mission to see how much you could do in Uptown with just $20 and proceeded to visit many math related locations.
