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State School Superintendent Mo Green and one of his top lieutenants in the Department of Public Instruction rolled out an ambitious list of funding priorities Thursday for state legislators.
“I’ve not been bashful about saying that we ought to be striving to be the very best public education system in the entire country,” said Green in addressing the Joint Appropriations Committee on Education.
Green said he’s actively engaging in a statewide “listening and learning tour” to hear from parents, students, and the business community about what is going well and what needs improvement.
More Helene relief
Green and Geoff Coltrane, Senior Director of Government Affairs at DPI, said many of the items on their agenda cannot wait. An initial $50 million, appropriated by the General Assembly last fall to help schools recover from Hurricane Helene’s wrath, simply was not enough.
“So, we’re requesting at this time an additional $100 million to help make sure that all school districts are able to contract to get those repairs made,” said Coltrane.
Under relief legislation enacted last fall, impacted districts would be required to reimburse the state for any repairs that are eventually covered by insurance or FEMA funds. But that money could be years away. Coltrane said Onslow County schools just recently received federal reimbursement for repairs that were made following Hurricane Florence six years ago.
Teacher pay, school facilities, student mental health
Green and the State Board of Education are also pressing to restore master’s pay for all educators and to raise teacher compensation, so North Carolina is in a competitive position in the Southeast.
On average, Georgia pays its teachers about $8,000 more a year than North Carolina.
“We’re also trailing Virginia, Alabama, and South Carolina,” said Coltrane.
A whopping $13 billion is needed to meet school construction demands across the state. Every five years DPI does a school facility survey, and with rising construction and labor costs, Green and Coltrane reported that number may be on the low end of what’s needed.
“We encourage you to consider additional funding for that as well as a school-wide construction bond,” Coltrane recommended.
To address student mental health needs, the DPI and the State Board of Education would like to see a recurring $65 million for districts to hire nurses, counselors, social workers and psychologists.
“These individuals are vital to making sure that our students’ mental health and physical health needs are addressed so that they can learn,” Coltrane explained.
The allocation would allow schools to hire 660 additional specialists in those fields.
Student hunger, technology needs
Because food insecurity can disrupt student learning, the department is seeking a recurring $377 million appropriation to expand school breakfast and lunch programs at no cost to students. It’s estimated that the initiative would benefit up to 350,000 students.
One other big-ticket item included in Green’s request to lawmakers: more than $152 million in recurring dollars to fund a replacement of obsolete computer equipment. Technology that was purchased with federal dollars during the pandemic to allow for remote learning is now five years old.
A survey released last year found 77% of school districts lacked the money to refresh student devices.
The average replacement cycle for technology is about every four to five years.
“So, this request would actually be funding for a recurring allotment to help school districts replace those one-to-one devices over a four-year cycle. This amount of funding would be about 380,000 devices in a year, and over four years a district would be able to replace all their devices in their schools,” Coltrane projected.
The elephant in the room
While time at Thursday’s early morning appropriations meeting was limited for questions, Sen. Val Applewhite (D-Cumberland) wanted to address the one budgetary concern that was causing her to lose sleep.
“Some of this is just to calm my nerves, okay? I am trying to figure out the true impact if the Department of Education is disbanded at the federal level. What is the true impact to funding, staffing, personnel?” asked Applewhite.
Superintendent Green said Applewhite’s question was a powerful one because at this point no one at the state or local level knows what the Trump administration means when it pledges to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.
DPI receives roughly $1.10 billion in federal funding annually for elementary and secondary education — a fact that makes it critically important to know how the Trump administration will administer those dollars in the future as the state crafts its own budget.
“It could mean the Department of Education goes away, but a different department actually then becomes the administrator of those funds. There’s been some discussion for example, the Department of Health and Human Services would become the administrator for those funds,” said Green, offering an optimistic interpretation.
“So, when you find out we’ll find out?” asked Sen. Applewhite.
“As we know more, we will certainly let you know,” Superintendent Green reassured.
“Good, because I stay up at night.”
The Joint Appropriations Committee on Education meets again March 4th.