Is this south Charlotte school board race the one to watch in 2025 CMS elections?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- District 6 features three newcomers competing to replace incumbent Summer Nunn.
- Endorsement from former CMS consultant raised conflict-of-interest questions.
- Candidates prioritize funding, teacher pay, student outcomes and transparency.
An incumbent who’s stepping down after one term. A trio of newcomers vying to fill the south Charlotte seat. An endorsement that’s raised eyebrows.
There are six seats up for grabs on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education this November. Two of them don’t have incumbents running. Just one – District 6 – has three newbies to Charlotte politics.
In the District 6 race, a former Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools consultant, whose wife still has a six-figure contract with the district, endorsed one candidate for the position before his tenure with the CMS was up this summer, prompting allegations about a conflict of interest. But, the former consultant has denied there’s anything improper about his support.
District 6 covers the southernmost part of Mecklenburg County — starting near Matthews and ending in Steele Creek at the South Carolina border. Its current school board representative, Summer Nunn, announced in July she would not seek a second term.
Nunn said in a July Facebook post that she would forgo seeking a second term in order to focus on her other responsibilities as a marketing executive and mom of two.
Raki McGregor, a Charlotte businessman and former advisor to CMS Superintendent Crystal Hill, told WFAE in August he felt some school board members were not totally supportive of Superintendent Hill, who he said is “doing a phenomenal job.” McGregor is a long-time supporter of Hill’s, having previously penned a letter to the school board during its superintendent selection process in May 2023, urging members to choose Hill for the job.
Nunn, who has voted against a few of Hill’s proposals, took issue with the notion she is not supportive of the superintendent.
“Pressing for answers or questioning investments is not opposition. It is governance,” she said in her Facebook post. “With limited resources, stewardship sometimes means me saying no or not now, especially when we’re waiting until we see the results to justify further investments.”
Three challengers stepped up to fill her seat in the nonpartisan race: Anna London, Toni Emehel and Justin Shealy.
All but one of this year’s school board races have at least two people on the ballot, including newcomers to running for office and veteran candidates. Early voting starts Thursday. Election Day is Nov. 4.
Anna London
London is president and CEO of Charlotte Works, Mecklenburg County’s workforce development board, and has centered her campaign on building a “bridge” between CMS students and opportunities after graduation.
“We’ve got to make sure that our students are prepared for life after graduation, whether that is entering the military, going to college or entering the workforce,” London told The Charlotte Observer.
London said she was inspired to run as a first-time candidate because of the current social and political backdrop.
“I would say public schools are under attack across the country but also definitely at the state level. There is an emphasis on defunding and deconstructing public education,” she said. “I understand how important public education is to a thriving community, and I think timing right now is critical in this political landscape.”
She identified funding as a major challenge for the district and said that she would support higher pay for CMS educators. Emehel and Shealy did as well.
London told The Observer the district’s recent student achievement gains are evidence the school board and superintendent have “done a great job” at closing achievement gaps. But, she said, there is still room for improvement.
McGregor accompanied London when she filed to run. He works with London at Charlotte Works, where he serves as board chair.
His wife, Kimberly McGregor, owns an education consulting firm called SYDKIMYL that had a $500,000 CMS contract last year, which drew questions from some board members. The original contract expired in June, but public records show CMS signed a new $180,000 contract with SYDKIMYL that runs through Jan. 30. The new contract falls below the $250,000 threshold that would require board approval.
The two school board candidates Raki McGregor voiced support for – London and Charlitta Hatch in District 1 – are running for seats currently held by two of three board members who voted against approving the previous $500,000 SYDKIMYL contract. Lisa Cline of District 5 also voted against the contract extension.
But school board votes on the SYDKIMYL contract did not factor into his decision about who to endorse, McGregor told WFAE in August.
London said she consulted “multiple different layers of legal counsel” who determined there is no conflict of interest for her to serve as president and CEO of Charlotte Works and on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education.
“If a conflict of interest opportunity did arise, I would abstain from voting or confer with the general counsel to confirm there is no conflict of interest there,” London said.
Toni Emehel
Toni Emehel is a first-time school board candidate and a longtime CMS parent and parent-teacher association member. As a child, she attended CMS schools.
She chose to run after seeing news that Nunn wouldn’t run again.
“I knew what kind of influence a board member could have on my children, and I didn’t see a familiar name running,” she said. “I entered the race out of concern for students.”
Emehel, who works as a strategic planning consultant, said CMS’ recent performance gains are good, but that the district is underperforming. Her campaign slogan is “Aim high with Toni.”
“I’m disappointed at the low level performance that we’re celebrating. There was improvement, but overall, the performance was disheartening,” she said, pointing to the district’s 56% student proficiency rate on state exams. “I applaud the growth, but it’s still low, and it’s not time for us to take a bow.”
Emehel is particularly concerned with the gaps in performance that persist between student groups and schools in the district.
“My concern is that we are not wrapping high-level support around all of our students,” she told The Observer. “For those who have been on the board for a while, shame on them – because they have not done what is needed to lift our kids out of the gap.”
Emehel says she is concerned about London’s ties to Charlotte Works.
“Why is it that a person who is the president and CEO of a partner organization is seeking to strengthen their influence on the school board?” Emehel said.
Like her opponents, Emehel said teachers need to be paid more, and she believes the district’s budget needs to be closely examined in order to ensure resources are going to educators.
“I think there needs to be a critical review of the budget,” she said. “I think there should be a high priority placed on the budget that reflects the words coming out of our mouths. If we say we prioritize teachers, that needs to be reflected in the budget.”
Justin Shealy
Justin Shealy is a family law attorney who is currently working to get licensed to foster children. When he and his wife learned their potential foster kids would need to attend public school, he decided to run for a school board seat.
“I thought ‘What better way to entrench myself in the education of my children?’” he told the Observer. “I saw an opportunity and wanted to be a part.”
Shealy is largely running on a platform of increased transparency and parental involvement.
“I’m running for School Board because I believe it’s time to put students first, restore parental rights, and bring common sense accountability back to our schools,” his campaign website says. “I want to make sure every parent feels confident sending their child to a CMS classroom, knowing they’ll be safe, challenged academically and taught without political bias.”
Shealy said this year’s student achievement gains show promise.
“I think Superintendent Hill has done a good job of knowing where her focus should be,” he said. “I would like to see gains continue. I would like to make sure this year is not an outlier.”
Like his opponents, Shealy agrees CMS needs to focus on “attracting and retaining good talent” in the classroom, which he said should include more support like math tutors and early literacy coaches.
“Teachers are an essential workforce,” he said. “They should be treated as such and paid as such.”
However, Shealy is notably less concerned with London’s ties to Charlotte Works than Emehel is.
“I know that the CMS board general counsel reviewed it and I trust that they made the right decision,” he said. “As a board member, if there were ever an appearance of a conflict of interest, I would recuse myself.”
Other races on the ballot
There are five other school board seats on the ballot in November, four of which are contested. District 3 representative Dee Rankin, current vice chair of the board, is running unopposed.
In District 1, incumbent Melissa Easley is running against Charlitta Hatch and Bill Fountain. While Fountain has run multiple times before, Hatch is new to school board politics and carries Raki McGregor’s support.
Hatch, who is the City of Charlotte’s chief data and analytics officer, made a statement with big-time fundraising of $45,000 through Sept. 23, The Charlotte Ledger reported. Most school board candidates don’t draw more than a few thousand dollars.
Easley is a former CMS teacher and faced some backlash following a post she made to her personal Facebook account following the death of media personality Charlie Kirk. She condemned political violence but said she did not feel “mournful” for Kirk, who she said “has gone around saying I or my spouse are abominations, that we are mentally ill, that we don’t deserve the same rights as everyone else.” Easley identifies as a member of the LGBTQ community and her spouse is gender-fluid.
Easley has voted against a few proposals made by Superintendent Hill, including the SYDKIMYL contract extension and this year’s budget, arguing its teacher raises were too small.
She pushed back on McGregor’s comments to WFAE that he felt some current board members have not been entirely supportive of the superintendent.
“I measure success not by whether consultants, insiders or local socialites are happy with me, but by whether our students, families and employees have what they need to thrive,” she said in a Sept. 3 Facebook post.
District 2 also lacks an incumbent after longtime board member Thelma Byers-Bailey announced she would not seek reelection. Both candidates in the race, Shamaiye Haynes and Juanrique Hall, have made unsuccessful bids for a seat on the school board before. Byers-Bailey endorsed Haynes. Hall carries the endorsement of Mecklenburg County’s chapter of Moms for Liberty.
Haynes is a founder of the Charlotte Community Think Tank and president of the Greater Enderly Park Neighborhood Association. She was appointed to CMS’ Community Capital & Bond Committee in 2019. She previously ran for an at-large seat on the CMS Board in 2023.
Hall is an alumnus of West Charlotte High School, where he now is a volunteer football coach, and previously worked with the city’s Alternatives to Violence program. He also previously ran for the District 2 seat in 2022. Hall has a criminal record but said his experiences inspired him to want to steer kids on a different path.
“How am I supposed to teach kids not to do wrong if I haven’t done anything wrong?” Hall told the Observer in 2022. “It’s life experience. Every average human has had a traffic violation. I was a child when I was incarcerated.”
In District 4, incumbent and Board Chair Stephanie Sneed is seeking reelection against two newcomers, Jillian King, a stay-at-home mom and former educator, and Robert L. Edwards, a CMS teacher who works with students who have special needs.
Sneed, an attorney, was first elected in 2022. The most important issues in CMS are “student outcomes, teachers, engagement and legislation,” she told The Observer.
King’s number one priority for the district is the safety of all students, and she’s calling for a reevaluation of investigation and disciplinary processes. Meanwhile, Edwards said the most important issues in the district are “the student mental health crisis, equity in resources, post-pandemic academic recovery and adapting to federal mandates.”
District 5 is a face-off between two retired CMS educators: incumbent Lisa Cline and Cynthia Stone.
Cline was elected to the CMS school board in 2022, running on a platform of “accountability, safety and change for educational excellence for every student,” according to her campaign website.
According to her campaign website, Stone wants to promote safe schools, student mental health resources, teacher retention, pandemic learning loss recovery and transparency.
This story was originally published October 15, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to reflect than Juanrique Hall worked for the city’s Alternatives to Violence program until October 2024. A previous version of this story was incorrect.
