Thelma Byers-Bailey spent a lot of time in front of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education before she ever thought to join them. As president of the Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Association, she fought to keep schools open in District 2, losing that particular battle in 2011. But instead of accepting defeat, she decided “they needed help in making better decisions.”

“I came with such a feeling of frustration with respect to the closing of the Lincoln Heights Elementary building, which was not a thriving school, but it was a neighborhood school,” Byers-Bailey said. “It served a community where the teachers who taught there were also neighborhood members, and they were telling us that this is what we need.

“It was a brand new building, and they were going to send my students over to this older building where the roof was leaking,” she said. “They didn’t listen, and I said, “Well, you’re going to hear from me.”

And they did. Byers-Bailey ran for the board and won by 70% over the incumbent. She took her seat on the dais in 2013 and has grappled with many CMS needs during her tenure – not just in her district, but across the county. With 12 years of service, she is one of the board’s longest-serving members and has decided to step down at the end of this term.

“I feel good about the job I've done, I really do,” she said. “I'm waiting to see what God has in store for me next.”

When Byers-Bailey took office, the Lincoln Heights closing had given her “a facilities mindset,” but she also had a long-term goal to give students the kind of education she received when she was in CMS. The only child of two educators, she was born in Wilson, N.C., but her family moved to Charlotte when she was a baby. Her father was Walter G. Byers, a CMS principal for 25 years and the namesake of the Walter G. Byers School. Byers-Bailey graduated from West Charlotte High School and earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and math from Fisk University, a law degree from St. Louis University and a master’s degree from the St. Louis Joint Degree Program.

“My other, long-term goal was for students to get the excellent education that I had gotten through CMS,” she said. “I had stellar teachers all along the way. This was during the Jim Crow era, but I had teachers who really poured into me, to the point that when I was in law school, I was still using skills that I learned in ninth grade from my English teacher. I got a full ride to law school – I could compete with anybody.”  

Some of the many high points in Byers-Bailey’s career center on securing new facilities for stable learning environments. When West Charlotte was on the 2017 bond for repairs, she visited the college campus-style school and saw for herself the condition of the various buildings.

“I went through every building up there – it was like from A to P – and out of all of those, there were only three buildings that I felt were worthy of saving. I said, ‘You're throwing good money after bad. Take the money you're putting on that bond, add some more, and just build them a new school – one building that’s safe that the kids can be proud of.”

She also pushed for Bruns Avenue Elementary School to be on that same bond. The old school leaked, carpets were wet, and a two-pipe system allowed temperature extremes. It was during those 2017 bond discussions that Byers-Bailey championed the idea of building new schools on adjacent property where possible, rather than “swinging” students to other campuses during new school construction. 

“They had never done that before,” she said. “That was one of my brainstorms, just from walking the campuses and seeing they had all this property and did not even use it.”

Both in and outside her district, Byers-Bailey also has been a champion for neighborhood groups that have wanted to save unused school buildings that had historic recognition. While CMS is not allowed to demolish those buildings, it can sell the properties, and Byers-Bailey has fought to save them for community use.

“In the case of [the Cherry neighborhood], they appealed to me and I listened,” she said. “I convinced the board one by one – took them over there and let the community give them a presentation – and I managed to get seven people to say, ‘We won’t sell it.’”

Along the way, Byers-Bailey is also proud of her involvement with revamping the magnet school lottery and being in the first cohort with the Council of Great City Schools to talk about student outcomes focused governance.

“After the first session, I said, ‘We gotta do this.’ They train you on how to change the way boards work. And if the board changes its focus on students, then everybody else will change their focus on students. We are the leaders. We have to set the tone to uplift the students and make sure every student gets an opportunity to be enrolled, enlisted or employed.”

Byers-Bailey said she is looking forward to a quieter life, and she won’t miss answering emails, which can take up a whole day; she said she answers all her constituents “because they need to know that somebody’s listening to them.”

Her last full board meeting is Nov. 18, and she will transition off the board on Dec. 9, to which she said, “Hallelujah!”