CHARLOTTE -- Dr. Clayton Wilcox is wrapping up his first semester with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and he says the first 100 days flew by!

“I've talked to lots of parents and lots of kids,” he said. “It's a 7-day week kind of thing.”

Wilcox took over after Ann Clark retired.

One of the first headlines Clayton made was when he created a culinary manager position and hired his chief of staff's husband, Jody Francisco.

Some teachers criticized the move, but Wilcox told us he stands by that decision because he believes we're seeing positive changes.

“I think you're seeing it in some of our classrooms as Jody goes out and actually works with schools, talks about healthy eating choices,” he said. “I think you'll see it in some creation of salad bars we didn't have before.”

We asked, “Is there anything you could've done differently? How you presented that position... Anything like that?”

He told us “Could I have done a better job at presenting that? Yes I probably could've upon reflection. I could've done a better job in terms of articulating what it was that I wanted him to be able to do within our system.”

Another critical eye on CMS came in November when two school buses caught fire in one month.

For one of the buses, the exact cause remains unknown.

We asked if that’s been frustrating.

“It is frustrating to me because you want to be able to say to the community we've identified the problem, we fixed it, it's not going to happen again. There's also been positive headlines.”

And Wilcox told us he has a clear mission ahead of him.

He wants to work on improving 3rd graders’ reading proficiency levels and work on equity among all schools.

“You know, housing patterns that our communities find themselves in often dictate who goes to what certain neighborhood schools,” he said. “It shouldn't matter what school you go to in this district. When you graduate, that degree ought to mean something, and they should mean the same thing whether you graduate Providence High or Garinger High, from West Meck, or Mallard Creek.”