As state officials work to rebuild roads damaged by Hurricane Helene, educators are also examining what repairs will be needed for school infrastructure. (Photo: Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)
Hundreds of miles away from Hurricane Helene’s destruction in western North Carolina, top education officials outlined their initial request to get storm damaged schools re-opened and students back in front of their teachers.
NC Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt told the state Board of Education Thursday that nearly a week after the hurricane struck, the full extent of damage to the state’s public school infrastructure remains unknown. Three school districts: Mitchell, Yancey and Haywood County Public Schools have no connectivity.
Haywood County shared this image on social media to give the outside world an extent of the flooding they experienced. (Photo: Haywood Co. Gov.)
The state is also assessing the condition of the 20 charter schools that are in the disaster declaration area.
Truitt said the main concern that school district leaders are sharing is that they want to make sure that all their employees remain whole financially.
“So, we are asking that all employees are held harmless due to the hurricane and that any days that they have missed due to whether school is canceled or whether they cannot get to work that they are held harmless for that,” explained Truitt.
(This will be voluntary for charter schools in the impacted area which have a different financial structure than the state’s traditional LEAs.)
The second most common concern is school calendar flexibility. Fortunately, there’s precedents for this following Hurricane Florence and again with COVID.
“They have a choice of how they approach this. They can do one or both of making up days or deeming up to 20 days completed,” reassured Truitt. “So again, we want to provide as much flexibility as we can when it comes to the calendar.”
The State Board of Education is also recommending impacted school districts be granted the maximum flexibility beyond the currently allowed 15 remote instructions days or 90 remote instruction hours as recovery continues.
For student teachers enrolled in the Educator Prep Program (EPP) in an impacted county, the board is recommending it be deemed that the student has completed the clinical internship requirement if they were planning on graduating in December 2024, despite not meeting the full 16-week requirement.
The Department of Public Instruction will have two significant funding asks when the legislature reconvenes October 9th.
The first is $16 million to hold harmless school nutrition staff, essentially funding the salaries and benefits for those school staff workers who were employed by the districts but missed days due to Hurricane Helene.
The second ask is for an initial $150 million in funding to cover repairs and renovations, school nutrition needs, equipment, and supplies, and technology loss that is not covered by insurance.
Truitt reminded the board that when Hurricane Florence hit in 2018, Edgecombe County Public Schools lost an entire elementary school building.
State Superintendent Catherine Truitt (Photo: Screen grab from video stream)
“We don’t know yet how many other buildings [from Helene] will be rendered useless,” said Truitt.
If school buildings do need to be replaced, recent construction grants peg the cost at $42 million for an elementary school, $52 million for a middle school, and $62 million for a high school.
The initial $150 million being requested from the legislature would replace lost technology, athletic fields that have been ruined, equipment loss, mold remediation, and anything else that needs to be done in a building that’s salvageable.
Board vice chair Alan Duncan stressed the document being presented to lawmakers next week should be considered ‘a first cut.’
“Because I don’t think it would be fair to our schools out west to be boxed in based on incomplete information. We want to make sure these schools are properly tended and loved as they deserve to be, after the kind of nightmare they’re going through,” Duncan said.
The state superintendent said her department is receiving eyewitness accounts from both educators and from western legislators about the extent of the damage, so there is an understanding that more financial asks will be made.
State Board of Education member John Blackburn (Photo: NCDPI)
“So, there will be, the sort of the hold harmless and the calendar flexibility, those kinds of things will come first, perhaps a smaller amount of money to get going, and then larger amounts will follow as things become more clear,” Truitt explained.
Board member John Blackburn, who represents schools in the northwest region of the state, said the storm was essentially North Carolina’s version of Hurricane Katrina.
“We are still trying to find all kinds of folks, particularly young folks,” Blackburn said somberly. “The public schools have stood tall in every piece and part of this since this started a week ago. So, we need to support our public schools, all our teachers, all our custodians, everybody that helps nurture these children, and also remember that these children will not have food.
“It will fade from our minds, as it often does, that I would ask all of you to keep it in your thoughts and keep it in your prayers and to remember that this is going to be a long time, and we need to continue to support folks.
Click here to read NCDPI’s initial ask of the NC General Assembly for Helene recovery funds.