Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is in its second year of working with the Davidson Impact Fellowship program, which connects graduating students from Davidson College with one-year, post-graduate, experience-based fellowships at organizations that contribute to the community. 

While Davidson funds one fellowship position each year, CMS was able to add a second fellow this year through a partnership between Davidson College, the CMS Foundation and the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council (CELC). The positions are in the Office of Strategy and Innovation, and support monitoring of the Strategic Plan, the Annual Plan, project planning and research, said Danielle Miller, executive director of Strategy Management.

The first Davidson Impact Fellow was Bernice Saladin, who is now in law school at Rutgers University. The fellows are full-time employees, Miller said, with the same amount of work and exposure as permanent employees. They attend leadership meetings, give presentations, conduct trainings and produce reports.

“They're full-time employees, and we don’t treat them differently,” Miller said. “With last year being the first year of the program, we customized it to also address their learning needs and career development needs. Bernice, in particular, is going into child welfare law, so for the last two and a half months of her tenure, she shadowed different principals, assistant principals and counselors around the district to see what it’s like in a school to grow her knowledge base.”

When Miller was filling this year’s position, she found two top candidates and had to have both. Kayla Klurman joined CMS as the Davidson fellow, but Miller also wanted to hire Hugh Perry, who “has a passion for research.” She appealed to the CMS Foundation, which created a CMS Foundation Fellow position. While Klurman has focused on strategy work, Perry has supported research and analytics. 

Klurman said she is a lifelong public education advocate and a product of the public school system. She said it was important for her to join CMS to contribute her perspective and make a difference for students who share her background.

“There is a sense of purpose in serving as an advocate for those who have not yet found their footing or are still discovering how to use their voices,” said Klurman, who will attend Elon University School of Law with an interest in family law. “To me, working at CMS wasn’t just a job; it was an opportunity to give back to the system that shaped me and to ensure the next generation has the same, if not better, opportunities to succeed.”

Klurman said this experience has taught her about collaborative problem-solving and blending diverse ideas to reach a common goal. She was struck by the massive infrastructure required to support a district and is now looking at her future “through a wider lens” on how she eventually could serve education from a legal or administrative position.

Perry said he was surprised at the range of responsibilities each department has and by the close alignment of all department goals. He said working on the Research and Evaluation team has shown him the research capacity and partnerships needed for a thriving department, and that his work has a big impact and leads to actionable policy decisions. 

“This position has given me many skills and experiences that will be helpful in my future,” said Perry, who has been accepted into the Ph.D. program in Policy, Leadership and School Improvement at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “The data analysts here gave me a basic understanding of SQL software. SQL is a data analysis tool that was unfamiliar to me, and the team here patiently assisted me and grew my skills. I have also learned the scope of initiatives that a school district has ongoing at any given time and how important it is to have data to fuel decisions. I have learned communication skills to effectively work as a team, department, division and district.” 

Earlier this year, Davidson College held its first Davidson Impact Fellow Fair for its senior class, and Miller was there to meet candidates interested in working for CMS next year. 

“I would’ve loved to have been able to see all of the different companies that were there, but from the minute the fair opened until probably 30 or 40 minutes after it closed, we had a line of people that was just constant,” Miller said. “There’s a big interest in being at CMS.”

Henry Wilcox was recently accepted as the district’s next Davidson Impact Fellow, supporting Strategy Management. CMS was also able to secure another CMS Foundation Fellow for Research and Evaluation, which will be filled by Aidan Rose Devlin.

“We’re incredibly grateful for this partnership with Davidson, the CMS Foundation and the CELC,” Miller said. “These are brilliant kids, and the candidate pool is always very strong. They’re integral to the team.”