Belk Foundation Annual Report 2023

Fiscal Year

ANNUAL REPORT 2023

Dear Colleagues,

As we prepare for the 2023-24 school year, we reflect on our first year with a new executive director and we welcome new staff members to the Foundation. We feel our new team brings a variety of diverse experiences that will increase our capacity to support our non-profit partners within Charlotte-Mecklenburg and across the state of North Carolina.

Our partners are doing work as independent entities and at times, collective organizations to tackle the ongoing challenges of COVID recovery, staffing shortages, and a challenging political environment. Our family and The Belk Foundation continue our deep commitment to K-3 literacy and equitable access to effective teachers. Reform is needed in the public school system to benefit all students and to close learning gaps, especially of those students in racial and economic groups underperforming their peers.

We have seen the greatest positive impact when evidence-based strategies are combined with strong leadership, effective collaboration, and thoughtful innovation. For example, our focus area of early grade literacy is encouraged by the implementation of LETRS training, a job-embedded training in the science of reading. Recently, the state’s first cohort of districts completed their training and began to see gains in reading scores. Additionally, Read Charlotte convened six summer camp providers that demonstrated success in literacy gains to work together to increase their capacity to serve hundreds of more students to eliminate summer learning loss. A third example is the Public School Forum’s support of the Educator Pipeline Collaborative (EPC), a network of partnerships of teacher preparation programs, community colleges, and districts to increase the pipeline of teachers.

Our Fiscal Year 2023 Report highlights 25 new grant commitments totaling over $2.2 million this year. We highlight our partners so you can learn about their support of students and educators in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area and across the state.

It continues to be a moment in education of rapid changes in the city and across the state calling for an even greater need to put students first. The Belk Foundation is committed to supporting evidenced-based strategies to improve student outcomes.

Johnny Belk Belk Foundation Chairman

Executive Director’s Message

As I begin my second year as the Executive Director for The Belk Foundation, I am excited to introduce new staff and build a team that can continue to support and expand the work of the Foundation. Our combined experience will allow us to better partner with non-profit organizations and fellow funders. First, Kathryn James joined us as our new Grant Manager and she has experience in donor relations and advancement at Queens University and Johnson C. Smith University. Then, Jennifer Ruth joined us as a summer intern through the Leroy“ Pop” Miller Fellowship awarded to Teach For America alumni. She is a current second grade teacher at Eastover Elementary School. Lastly, Christiana Taylor is our new Program Officer. She is a native of North Carolina and joined us from the Children’s Trust in Miami, Florida where she served as a Program and Initiative Manager.

Over the past year, new educational leaders were selected in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg community and across the state. The Foundation reflected on how we can best support these leaders resulting in continuing our focus to make transformational improvements in K-3 literacy and teacher effectiveness. This includes our partnerships with NC Alliance for School Leadership Development, Queens University’s School Executive Leadership Academy, and the Office of Leadership Development at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to increase the capacity of school leaders and the principal pipeline.

We also focused on providing support for projects that demonstrate collaboration in order to have greater impact such as the Charlotte-Area Summer Access Fund convened by Read Charlotte and six summer camp programs to provide additional capacity to serve hundreds of more summer camp students. Additionally, we are partnering with The Innovation Project to engage in a design process that results in implementation of innovative strategies that address teacher dissatisfaction, creating a more sustainable and effective educator workforce and improving the student learning experience and academic outcomes.

I hope our 2023 Annual Report will serve as an opportunity for you to learn about the amazing work of several organizations across the city and state and even spur new ideas to improve educational opportunities for public school students.

Jevelyn Bonner-Reed Executive Director

Belk Foundation staff (as shown): Kathryn James, Jevelyn Bonner-Reed, Jennifer Ruth, and Christiana Taylor.

Research Matters: Improving How We

Read Charlotte

The Belk Foundation has been a proud supporter of Read Charlotte since the organization started. The mission of Read Charlotte is to support local partners in implementing evidence-based literacy practices and supporting continuous improvement with data analysis. The goal of the organization was to get 80% of students in Charlotte testing College and Career Ready at the end of third grade by 2025. Utilizing new data, Read Charlotte has reshaped its strategy to reach the community goal. Student MAP test data shows that the third grade reading gap was present across race and income level by the end of kindergarten. This sharpens the focus to closing early, initial gaps. Research into evidence-based practices helped highlight four key ingredients to reading success: oral language, listening comprehension, world knowledge and phonics, decoding and word recognition. These key ingredients help shape goals and provide information for community partners on how to best support students learning to read.

In response to the pandemic and data, Read Charlotte has shifted from one large 2025 goal to four staggard goals to reach 80% proficiency by 2030. The goals start with closing gaps in early grades because the research shows those are key leverage points.

The first goal is to increase the number of students who start kindergarten at grade-level expectations for reading from

The second goal is to increase the number of first graders who are reading on grade level from

The third goal is to increase the percentage of students testing College and Career Ready at the end of third grade from

The fourth goal is to increase the percentage of CMS fourth grade students who test proficient on NAEP from

NAEP is a national test, viewed as the nation’s report card, and students demonstrating proficiency on that test show that they have learned and retained the key reading skills they need to be successful.

Charlotte-Area Summer Access Fund

The Summer Access Fund is a collaboration of six nonprofit organizations to help support summer learning. Stopping summer reading loss is a key strategy to improving third grade reading outcomes. During Summer 2023, Above & Beyond, Freedom School Partners, Greater Enrichment Programs, Y Readers, Black Child Development Institute, and International House came together with Read Charlotte to expand access to summer reading programs. The focus of the fund is coordinating to help ensure that all Title I elementary schools in Charlotte have a summer program partner. By working together, they are avoiding competition and helping cover service gaps in Charlotte. In Summer 2023, the Summer Access Fund allowed six more schools and 360 more students to be served. The goal is to continue to sustain the programming and expand in 2024.

Approach K-3 Reading Achievement

NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching

The Development Foundation of the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT) is working with districts to help close learning gaps in reading. Research shows that using the Science of Reading (SOR) method of instruction helps make reading accessible to more students. The Belk Foundation provided funding for two projects to support NCCAT’s work in helping implement SOR in North Carolina.

This fall, NCCAT will invite all 115 NC school districts to a Literacy Leaders Conference. The conference will bring in speakers to expand literacy leaders’ content knowledge. The leaders will also discuss ideas on how to best support their teachers in implementing LETRS training which has been adapted by the state to increase teacher knowledge in SOR.

Gaps in reading instruction during the pandemic caused some secondary students to miss fundamental reading skills while in elementary school that they needed for success in middle and high school. Secondary teachers are not accustomed to needing to fill these gaps and could benefit from information and tools to help address this problem. NCCAT is developing 16 literacy learning leaders as part of its regional secondary literacy badge. These leaders are being trained in SOR and best literacy practices for secondary students’ learning. The learning will enable leaders to provide regional professional development around SOR implementation at the secondary level. This will address pandemic learning-loss and increase the impact of the Science of Reading in North Carolina.

“From the very simple to the more complex, the sessions and speakers offered a vast amount of information to help us as literacy leaders continue to facilitate change in our districts. I found it so helpful to be immersed in nothing but LITERACY for four days.”

- NCCAT participant

Leadership Matters: Equitable

A key focus of The Belk Foundation is to support an effective teacher-leadership pipeline. Strong leaders are key for successful schools and teachers. The Belk Foundation is providing resources to organizations who are supporting school leaders in hopes to make the profession more sustainable. When principals are able to be effective and engaged, it creates a better environment for teachers and students.

NC State University Principal Study

North Carolina State University conducted a study of elementary school principals to determine their familiarity with NC Foundations for Early Learning Development. It is important for elementary school principals to have an understanding of early learning development because approximately half of NC Pre-K students attend Pre-K within a public elementary school building. Effective Pre-K principals can ensure that the program at their school is developmentally appropriate and facilitates vertical alignment with early grades. The challenge is that principals are not as familiar with NC Foundations for Early Learning Development. The study has found that 50.3% of principals are somewhat familiar with early learning and only 11% are very familiar with early learning. The lack of knowledge makes it challenging for principals to be as effective leading the Pre-K programs in their building.

NC Alliance for School Leadership

“Principals want to support Pre-K programs, but some lack the knowledge and skill to do so effectively.”

NC State has moved into a second phase of this research project and is piloting a program to support elementary principals. This will be a two-year process. In the first year, the design team, which includes current principals and district leaders, is developing the principal learning model. In the second year, they will pilot it with 2-3 school districts and 6-10 school leaders from the districts. They will use the data from that pilot year to begin a large-scale federal evaluation and spread the evidence-based model across North Carolina.

Early-career principals face many challenges when starting in their new roles and many end up leaving before the end of their third year. The North Carolina Alliance for School Leadership Development is creating an Early Career Principals Academy to support beginning principals. The statewide initiative places principals in cohorts for a three-year leadership development program. It is designed to teach school leaders how to improve student outcomes and support them when they start their principal career.

Access to Effective Teachers

CMS appointed several new leaders at the end of the 2022-2023 school year including a new superintendent, Dr. Crystal Hill. The new leaders within CMS bring innovative ideas to the district. The Belk Foundation supports two grants for CMS as they drive change within the district.

The CMS Foundation’s Teacher Innovation Grant supports teams of teachers working to solve cross-school problems. The grant supports these teachers in design-thinking and schoolbased innovation to promote collaboration in the building and improve school culture. Over the course of three years, the grant will help fund between twenty-five and thirty teacher teams who are addressing challenges at their schools. Their innovations will benefit student learning experiences and help teachers develop leadership and design skills.

Kimberly Vaught is the new Executive Director of Leadership Development at CMS. Through her innovation as a principal, she has led several successful turnaround initiatives at three high-poverty schools within CMS. Most recently she helped turn Allenbrook Elementary School from an F school in 2020 to a B school in 2023.

The CMS Leadership Development Office has been awarded a grant to increase the capacity of principals to craft an asset-focused narrative for their school, increase community engagement, and build school culture focused on excellence. Over half of CMS principals are within their first three years as principal. Supporting them to both improve student achievement and to inspire staff, students, and the community will help them actualize their vision for their school.

Dr. Crystal Hill, Superintendent, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools

“I have been inspired to inspire because the inspired have inspired me.”

- Kimberly Vaught Executive Director at CMS

Grant Partner Impact

New Grantee: Freedom School

Freedom School summer program works to help prevent summer learning loss. During summer 2023, Freedom School served 340 K-3 scholars across 13 CMS schools. The Freedom School program utilizes culturally relevant literature to help engage students in reading. Freedom School incorporates Social Emotional Learning into their reading instruction to teach students cooperative learning, resilience, and conflict resolution. These skills help students be successful in the classroom.

New Grantee: The Innovation Project

The Innovation Project (TIP) is an organization that pilots innovative designs to help school districts impact student outcomes. With the grant from the Belk Foundation, TIP is researching new ideas on how to make the teaching profession more competitive versus other professions requiring similar levels of education. The current teacher shortage impacts students’ academic achievement and school experience. The Innovation Project is designing solutions to help address teacher dissatisfaction and make the profession more sustainable.

- Summer Scholar

Current Multi-Year Grants*

Black Child Development Institute-Charlotte

CMS Foundation

Heart Math Tutoring

Latinx Education Center

North Carolina Alliance for School Leadership Development

North Carolina Business Leaders for Education (BEST NC)

North Carolina State University

ourBridge for KIDS

Profound Ladies

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Urban Promise Charlotte

$136,000 $150,000 $150,000 $100,000 $120,000 $90,000 $141,234 $150,000 $50,000 $164,000 $297,854 $34,705 $130,000

“It’s an honor to be here and learn new things every day.”

Charlotte Grants

The Belk Foundation Charlotte Grants

Black Child Development Institute - Charlotte

K-3 Achievement

Program support to the Family Empowerment Program (FEP) to build the capacity of parents and caregivers as leaders and advocates of their families.

$136,000 (over 2 years)

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Foundation

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

Program support for coaching and project planning for schools and teacher-led teams participating in CMS Foundation’s Teacher Innovation Center.

$150,000 (over 3 years)

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Foundation

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

Program support to strengthen school leader retention and support targeted professional development opportunities for school leaders.

$50,000

Communities In Schools

K-3 Achievement

Program support to remove barriers to educational equity for elementary students.

$40,000

Freedom School Partners

K-3 Achievement

Program support for summer program to stop summer learning loss and create passionate readers and learners.

$50,000

Heart Math Tutoring

K-3 Achievement

General operating support to help students in grades 1-5 build critical foundational math skills and academic confidence.

$150,000 (over 2 years)

ourBRIDGE for KIDS

K-3 Achievement

General operating support for an afterschool program with a focus on literacy for immigrant and refugee children from Title I CMS schools.

$150,000 (over 3 years)

Profound Gentlemen

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

Capacity building support to promote retention of male educators of color in North Carolina through professional development, leadership, and mentorship models.

$50,000

Queens University of Charlotte

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

Program support for Queens School Executive Leadership Academy (SELA), a program that prepares new school leaders and principals through a partnership with Queens’ McColl School of Business, Cato School of Education, and CMS.

$40,000

Summer Access Fund (Read Charlotte)

General operating support for a collective of 6 local non-profit partners working collaboratively to expand the number of schools and students who have access to summer programs across Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

$50,000

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

K-3 Achievement

Program support for teacher candidates to have a high-quality clinical experience by tutoring K-5 grade CMS students in foundational reading.

$297,854 (over 2 years)

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

K-3 Achievement

Program support for professional development and networking support for preservice teachers of color.

$34,705 (over 2 years)

Urban Promise Charlotte

K-3 Achievement

General operating support for a year-round program for low-income students that provides out-of-school-time academic and spiritual development.

$130,000 (over 2 years)

North Carolina Grants

The Belk Foundation North Carolina Grants

BEST NC

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

General operating support for BEST NC, a nonprofit, non-partisan coalition of business leaders committed to transforming North Carolina education through state policy and advocacy.

$90,000 (over 2 years)

digiLEARN

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

Program support to create recommendations for micro-credentials that will lead to state-wide systemic improvements in how NC teachers are developed, recognized, and rewarded.

$50,000

LatinxEd

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

General operating support for the LatinxEd’s work with current and future educators by building a network through their community of practice and coaching support.

$100,000 (over 2 years)

National Council on Teacher Quality

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

Program support to engage with stakeholders in North Carolina to advance policies and practices that promote both strong elementary literacy instruction and a diverse teacher workforce in order to improve student outcomes.

$75,000

NC Alliance for School Leadership Development

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

Program support to create and implement the Early Career Principals Academy, a statewide leadership development initiative for early-career public school principals.

$120,000 (over 3 years)

North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

Program support for Literacy Leaders Conference for learning, collaboration, and problem-solving opportunities for early grades and the development of a secondary literacy badge.

$55,020

North Carolina State University

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

Program support to develop and pilot a transformational principal learning model for early grades leadership in North Carolina.

$141,234 (over 2 years)

Profound Ladies

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

General operating support to mitigate teacher attrition, holistic training and support for North Carolina-based teachers of color.

$50,000 (over 2 years)

Public School Forum of North Carolina

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

Program support for actionable and sustainable models for recruiting and retaining a diverse teacher workforce.

$49,924

The Hunt Institute

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

Program support to continue efforts to build a diverse educator workforce and embed the Science of Reading in Educator Preparation Programs (EPPs) and policies.

$75,000

The Innovation Project

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

Program support to create a more sustainable and effective educator workforce and improve the student learning experience and academic outcomes.

$50,000

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Strengthening Teachers and Leaders

Program support to pilot a system for student rostering practices and equitable access to highly effective teachers.

$164,000 (over 2 years)

Next Gen Grants & Our Board

Next Gen

The Next Generation Advisory Board consists of the fourth generation of the Belk Family as they continue the family legacy by serving on the board and committees of The Belk Foundation and provide valuable input into grant and other foundation decisions.

The Belk Foundation Board Changes

The Belk Foundation made changes to the board and committees over the past two years.

We welcomed a new board member, Dr. Brandy Nelson. Brandy serves as Academic Director for Reading Reimagined and is a Partner at Rethink. She brings over twenty-five years of experience working to ensure positive educational outcomes for all children.

We also welcomed Dr. Leah Davis to the Grant Committee. Leah is the principal at Cato Middle College High School in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS).

Additionally, we welcomed Arrington Mixon to the Investment Committee. She also chairs the Governing Board of Directors and the Investment Committee of Foundation for the Carolinas, as well as being an Advisory Board Member of Women’s Impact Fund, LISC Charlotte, and a Trustee at the George Washington Foundation.

The Belk Foundation would like to thank Anthony Fox for his six-year tenure on our board. Anthony is a Charlotte native and a partner at Parker Poe law firm.

Arrington Mixon

Dr. Brandy Nelson

Anthony Fox

Dr. Leah Davis

Charlie Morris served on the Investment Committee. Adelaide Martin serves on the Investment Committee.

This includes Rob Belk who serves on the Board and Grant Committee.

Katherine Belk served on the Board and Personnel Committee.

“Their work and commitment to the Foundation brings a fresh perspective and is helping them prepare the Foundation to meet challenges of the future.”

- Johnny Belk