While many in the local school districts are busy either enjoying or preparing for Spring Break, the administrations and school boards are working on how to finish out this school year and plan for the future.
The Orange County Commissioners recently met with both the school boards of Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and Orange County Schools to discuss long-term issues — many of which are familiar to the county officials.
Each Orange County Schools and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools spoke about the challenges of staff retention. It’s a trend seen across the country and, as Orange County School Board Member Sarah Smylie said, reflected in a recent study by UNC. Smylie said her district is continuing to improve its diversity in educators, but it’s a “hugely ambitious goal” when considering the shrinking number of teachers in the state’s workforce.
“Our hard-to-fill positions are getting even harder to fill,” she said. “For us, that’s math, science, exceptional children’s teachers and CTE programs. And one major challenge for Orange County Schools is that several local districts offer higher salaries, higher supplements.”
For CHCCS, which experienced a critical staffing shortage for school bus drivers this fall, improving salaries is exactly what the district did to try and expand its team. But it also still has its fair share of vacancies, according to school board chair Rani Dasi.
“As of March 2, in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools,” Dasi said, “there were 47 [teacher] vacancies, 30 classified school-based vacancies – these are positions like teaching assistants or cafeteria employees – and three school administrator vacancies. So, we’re really focused on increasing salaries and benefits to remain market competitive.”
Another familiar refrain for key issues in the local districts: school safety. The county recently formed a School Safety Task Force that meets every few months. Andre Richmond is one of the Orange County Schools representatives in the group and has experience as a School Resource Officer. He said he’s looking forward to helping shape additional recommendations through that group and his district is exploring the installation of metal detectors as short-term measure.
County Commissioner Earl McKee voiced his support of that, acknowledging it is a topic that brings out passionate responses from the school community.
“In a way, I hate to see it,” said McKee. “Because I remember when I went to Orange High School, and it was pretty much free access. Unfortunately, I don’t think we can do that anymore.
“If it takes [metal detectors], I will support it,” he added. “Whatever we’ve got to do to prevent anything from happening instead of trying to worry about [school safety after the fact] is a plus.”
Security improvements are often part of capital needs spending – which both districts also discussed during the meeting. CHCCS pointed to nearly half of its facilities being 50 years old and needing a variety of upgrades, while Orange County Schools pointed to unexpected large projects arising that affect the district’s capital funds.
Board member Bonnie Hauser, however, credited the district’s administration for beginning to address smaller projects by using “program management” strategies.
“Rather than contract a bunch of little projects, which Orange County schools has been guilty of for a long time,” said Hauser, “we are grouping the projects together and contracting big projects. This makes for better management control and it’s a lot easier for us to administer. So that’s another way we’re beginning to move these projects faster – but there’s a lot to do.”
The achievement gap, which CHCCS now refers to as a difference in “growth proficiency” between underserved students and more privileged students, is also still top of mind. Chapel Hill-Carrboro’s district is exploring ways to try and individualize instruction for students to help them reach the necessary standards. It’s planning on a curriculum audit to improve everything from scheduling to understanding student growth “in real time.”
Superintendent Nyah Hamlett also shared some strategies to address those deficiencies right now.
“At the elementary level, we have intervention enrichment blocks in with our scheduling, so that the tutoring and enrichment can happen during the instructional day,” she said. “At the secondary level, we’re doing some of that as well, and we’ve brought in some tutors for both our middle and high schools. That’s an area of focus.”
Now, the districts will turn to finalizing their plans for budgets for the 2024 fiscal year. The Orange County Board of Education is holding a public hearing and potential votes on its budget on Monday night, while the CHCCS school board will look to approve a plan later in April.
The full meeting from March 9 between the two local school boards and Orange County commissioners can be watched here.
Featured via the Orange County government.
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