Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' morning bus on-time rate climbed from 75% to 91% during the first week of classes, Chief Operating Officer Tim Ivey said at a Saturday, Aug. 29 media briefing.

Afternoon on-time arrivals also improved, rising from 68% to 74% over the same four-day stretch that began Tuesday, Aug. 25, according to the Charlotte Ledger.

The gains follow an opening day that saw children dropped off in wrong neighborhoods. At the Wednesday, Aug. 26 school board meeting, Superintendent Crystal Hill pledged improvement, telling board members, "We are confident we'll be able to resolve those issues in the first week of school as drivers become more familiar with their routes and traffic patterns," as WBTV reported.

By week's end, Hill called the start "fabulous" and a "resounding success."

The district still has about 100 bus-driver vacancies, forcing some drivers to run multiple routes across a fleet of 750 buses serving more than 71,000 students. On the first day of school, Spectrum News reported 98 driver openings.

Teacher vacancies dropped from 161 on opening day to 130 by week's end. District leaders described the 130 figure as the lowest in three years, though no named official was cited for that comparison.

CMS is North Carolina's second-largest district, with nearly 140,000 students across 184 schools. No school-level data was released for Ballantyne-area campuses such as Ardrey Kell High School or Community House Middle School.

Safety systems got an early test. Weapons detectors flagged one student carrying mace and another carrying a knife during the first week, Ivey said.

A woman was arrested and charged with flashing a gun during a dispute in a carpool line outside Mint Hill Elementary School on Thursday, Aug. 27. Ivey reported "no major facility issues" across the district's campuses.

The briefing came with guardrails. CMS communications staff told reporters beforehand that questions should be "limited to back-to-school operations, the first four days of school and the information presented during today's briefing." That restriction kept questions about the investigation into Hill off the table.

WFAE reported on Friday, Aug. 28 that the investigation cost taxpayers at least $379,000, based on public records. As we reported Aug. 30, the board voted 6-0 on Aug. 25, with three members abstaining, to release a report on that investigation by the end of September.

That September deadline is the next public milestone for CMS families watching both the district's operational recovery and the superintendent's future.