A School's a School, No Matter How Small
At the April 1st Hyde County Board of Education meeting, the decision was made to cut three support staff positions at Ocracoke School.
The instructional aides for Pre-K, Kindergarten, and 1st grade will see their jobs eliminated after the school year ends. Because it’s Ocracoke and everyone knows everyone, I’ll mention them by name: Heather O’Neal, Serina O’Neal, and Crystal Halcomb. The school was able to retain one aide position, which will be filled by Lou Ann Gaskins. The aides will finish out this school year, and keep their health insurance for one more year.
“We were forewarned about this,” said Ocracoke School principal Walt Padgett. “Last year the school board was able to spare Ocracoke, but the budget cuts are so deep, we had to lose people this year.”
Mr. Padgett was quick to praise the staff members he’s losing.
“This is Crystal’s first year and she’s been just great,” he said. “When I got here, Serina was our number one sub, here almost every day and when the Pre-K position opened up she went right in there and has been great. Heather’s been here longer than I have and does so well in the Kindergarten classroom.”
He’s not happy to see them go.
“They’re all good people who did a great job for us,” he said. “This has nothing to do with them and everything to do with money and legislation.”
The legislation he’s referring to is the elimination of the small school supplemental funding. This is state money given to counties with small populations, in addition to the standard per-pupil allocation. It’s very helpful to school districts with fewer than 3200 students, and amounts to about 3% of North Carolina’s education spending. The legislature has drawn up a new formula to determine school funding that does not include the small school supplement. In 2013, the new formula was delayed for a year, but could go into effect at the beginning of the fiscal year in July.
“In my opinion, legislation is killing public education,” Padgett said. “I’m a little bitter about this. Actually, I’m a lot bitter because we lost people.”
Dear reader, take your mind back six months to the beginning of October and behold the article I should have posted then….
On October 10th, the Hyde County School Board, Hyde County Board of Commissioners, and County Manager Bill Rich held a special meeting with Rep Paul Tine. The topic was Hyde County School funding problems.
Because the state is now using a different formula to dole out money for schools, Hyde County Schools will lose 1.1 million over the next 3 years.
Thanks to Paul Tine, who asked for a delay last spring, the new formula was put off for a year. When the General Assembly reconvenes in May, he hopes they will come up with different funding options.
“We need a proactive idea about what should come next,” Tine said. “I’m working with a consortium of small schools and I’m committed to figuring out funding for rural schools.”
While Hyde County Schools superintendent Dr. Randolph Latimore is hopeful that the situation will change, he has to plan for budget shortfalls.
“The money in the budget is going to significantly decrease next year,” Latimore said. “I’ve got to plan ahead and let school personnel know what’s going on, at least before the school year ends in June. The new funding starts in July 2014. We’ve got to plan based on the formula that passed.”
Latimore said that Hyde County used the state supplemental funding to pay employees.
Hyde County Schools finance officer Ken Chilcoat said that the school district employs 30 people with the supplemental funding. That would equate to 10 certified teacher positions, and 20 support staff positions.
“We have fewer than 600 students in the whole county system,” Chilcoat said. “We don’t fit their model. When the funding is per-pupil, we really lose. Losing the small county supplement will cripple our schools. That money is intended to bring our students up to academic standards. We got extra funding for being an LEA [Local Education Agency] with fewer than 1300 students. We’re the smallest LEA so we lose the biggest. As long as funding is based on size, we’ll do the worst. That’s the math. We’re looking at least 20 positions.”
Tine said that when he approached this issue at the House last spring, he expected an active and loud fight between urban and rural interests.
“It’s not a fight,” he said. “It’s a complete lack of understanding. They don’t understand the scale of Hyde County. They can’t believe areas like this exist.”
Tine says the goal should be to show the legislature that, in small counties, the cost per student is too high to fit the new funding model.
“We need an argument that speaks their language and helps us win,” he said. “We need to invent a new formula to save our school, and we need the support from other small counties.”
Latimore and Tine both mentioned that requests for funding should be tied to student achievement and show the direct impact on school success.
Ocracoke’s representative on the school board is David Tolson. He said, “We need to raise our voice and make a noise about how good Hyde County Schools are. Ocracoke’s School of Excellence rating couldn’t be done without good teachers.” (BTW, David’s position is vacant as of the May 6th primary, and no one is on the ballot. Time to find a write-in candidate?)
…..Back to the present – and future….
“I’m not a politician, I don’t know where else you can get money,” Padgett said. “But education’s the future! It amazes me that when you start talking cuts, education is at the top of the chopping block.”
Padgett holds out some hope that they can stop the bleeding, and maybe hire back the valuable people he lost.
“Who’s to say the legislature won’t come up in May and find funding?” he said. “We’d like to have all four aide positions next year, and we really don’t want to lose anyone else. We’re barebones as it is, and they lost people at Mattamuskeet, too."
Padgett said that Dr. Latimore is working hard, lobbying for the funding formula to change.
“I don’t have time to follow all the politics,” Padgett said. “I’m busy running a school. But I do believe they’re playing chicken with our funds.”
And then he spoke with his usual Dolphin pride:
“It’s bad for us, but we’ve got good kids, good teachers, and lots of community support,” he said. “We’re going to overcome. We’re going to keep providing the best education possible because it’s Ocracoke.”
