Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools served more than 61,000 lunches and 27,000 free breakfasts each day during the first week of the 2026-27 school year, the district reported at a Friday, Aug. 28 media briefing.

Superintendent Dr. Crystal Hill held the briefing at the new Cato Ridge Middle School, a facility built with 2023 bond funds. Hill began a four-day school tour before dawn on Tuesday, Aug. 25, starting at the Downs Road Transportation Garage in Pineville and visiting Endhaven Elementary, a Ballantyne-area school. The tour gave Hill a firsthand look at campuses as nearly 140,000 students returned to 184 schools across Mecklenburg County.

A total of 114 schools participate in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), a federal program that provides free breakfast and lunch to every enrolled student at qualifying campuses. Breakfast is free districtwide for the 2026-27 school year. Paid lunch prices rose 10 cents to $2.60 for pre-K, $2.85 for K-8 and $3.10 for high school, The Charlotte Ledger reported.

As we reported Sept. 1, morning on-time bus arrivals climbed from 75.2% on opening day to 91% by Friday, Aug. 28. Afternoon arrivals improved from 68% to 74% over the same span, CMS Chief Operations Officer Tim Ivey said at the briefing, as The Charlotte Ledger reported.

The gains came despite roughly 100 bus-driver vacancies. Ivey told WCCB Charlotte that part-time drivers cover morning routes, but fewer are available in the afternoons. "We have a hundred vacancies … causing us to have to essentially run a double route to be able to provide services for everybody," Ivey said.

CMS also reported 135 teacher vacancies at the end of the first week, down from 161 before classes started and 77 fewer than the same point last year. More than 98.5% of teaching positions are filled.

The district launched a new bus-tracking app called AlphaPortal for the 2026-27 school year, replacing the previous Here Comes the Bus app. The tool lets families monitor their child's bus in real time and receive arrival notifications, QC News reported.

Other bond-funded projects that opened for the first time in August include Dilworth Elementary, built on the former Park Road Montessori site, and J.T. Williams Secondary Montessori at the former Marie G. Davis School location.