Aug 20, 2009
           

 Wake schools draw the line over budget cuts

There’s a lesson in the way Wake County school leaders decided to handle budget cuts this week – and only part of that lesson is financial.

Just before lawmakers approved a state budget two weeks ago, they decided to label $225 million in education cuts as discretionary. Schools weren’t given the discretion of whether to make cuts, just the discretion on where to make them. Wake’s share of the cuts came to $21.7 million.

Almost immediately, Gov. Beverly Perdue and the North Carolina Association of Educators claimed victory in the fight over retaining all classroom jobs. In short, they suggested schools take federal stimulus money, plug it into the hole created by the state cuts and call it even.

Wake County school leaders beg to differ with the formula and stopped just short this week of calling it irresponsible. By virtue of its size, Wake County’s position is attracting attention. And it almost guarantees other school systems will be lumped into one of two camps in the coming months: Those that fell in line behind the governor and those that didn’t.

“There is no way to make these cuts without affecting classroom teachers,” said school board member Lori Millburg. “Only they won’t say that.”

Federal stimulus money will reduce the number of jobs lost in Wake County’s schools. But the jobs paid for with federal money won’t be the same ones lost due to state cuts.

Instead Wake County decided months ago to anticipate the cuts by letting its workforce slowly shrink due to attrition. Many of the teacher vacancies were filled, but most central office jobs were not. And new teacher jobs weren’t added anywhere, which means more kids will be taught by fewer teachers if enrollment jumps as expected this year by another 2,400 students.

That means larger classes in general and the elimination of some classes with typically small enrollments, such as Advanced Placement courses, honors courses and special electives. At the same time, a 7.5 percent reduction in central services jobs since November will be made permanent.

Wake school leaders argue this is the only prudent way to navigate the shifting nature of the economic crisis. The federal money will be gone in two years and there is no promise – or even an indication at this point – that state money will be able to replace it.

That’s why much of the federal stimulus money in Wake is being spent to expand or improve programs that the school system hopes will have a lasting effect after the money runs out. For example, programs for math coaches and pre-kindergarteners will be expanded.

“This keeps us from falling off a cliff if the economy hasn’t recovered before the federal money runs out,” said David Neter, the system’s chief financial officer.

Figures presented by County Manager David Cooke this week suggest the local economy could be slow to recover. Unemployment is high and new residential building permits are still extremely low – two solid indicators of the coming months.

County and school system leaders are also beginning to question whether state revenue projections for the coming year are too high. The new state budget spent just about every dollar of expected revenue, so mid-year cuts will be necessary if tax collections fall short.

If that’s the economic future facing North Carolina, the approach taken by Wake County schools will look like a winner to other school systems statewide. But if the district’s caution proves unwarranted – or the political price turns out to be too high – this could be one of those public school lessons learned outside the formal classroom.

Looking beyond our borders

If you have one minute, click here to view a chart that provides various demographic details about other countries around the world. Notice the chart is not labeled to include the country names. That keeps you from cluttering your comparisons with ill-conceived perceptions of places like Slovenia and Kuwait. Based on the demographics, pick a place where you would like to live.

The exercise, described in more detail in a recent story by the News & Observer, was part of an International Baccalaureate training program at Millbrook High School. The point is not to disparage any country. The point is to illustrate how little most of us know about life outside our borders.

Much the same message was delivered to several hundred business leaders and educators last week at a gathering of the North Carolina Chamber. While the chamber event offered numerous insights, a large part of the day’s message boiled down to this: The 21st century is well underway. The global economy is now.

Some countries have figured this out already and have reshaped their schools accordingly.  Many students in our schools – and many of us as adults – still can’t find the starting line on a map of the world.

Just what are they doing on Wednesdays?

Sometime between now and then, a little current of complaints that began this summer is likely to become a cascade.

The point of sending students home early every Wednesday is to give teachers a chance to meet once a week to focus solely on student achievement. The approach is known formally as Professional Learning Teams and it grew out of work initially done by Triangle area school districts and five large local corporations.

While parents and business leaders often assume teachers meet regularly, the practice is rare. Even more difficult for the public to understand is why teachers just can’t meet during regular school hours – or maybe just before or after the regular school day. Without getting into the details of bus duty, school committees, high school class schedules and middle school sports programs, the easiest way to answer that question is with another question: Can your business get everyone to attend meetings before or after work every week?

Professional Learning Teams rely heavily on data-driven analysis to focus on discrete groups of students as they work their way through specific parts of the curriculum. Superintendent Del Burns is so certain this will improve learning in 2009-2010 that he has publicly promised better test scores. Rarely does an administrator peg one program to improved results.

Working with a large group of people from outside the system, the school system decided on the approach and schedule after more than two years of study. But once it was formally decided, it was not heavily advertised or marketed.

That meant the change caught many parents off guard given that most have no reason to look closely at the daily school schedule until just before the year begins. Even PTA leaders at a recent gathering in Wake County expressed frustration about how little they knew about Professional Learning Teams.

And without that information, parents are responding to the most obvious effects of the change. Schedules will be disrupted. Some kids will surely have extra unsupervised time on their hands.

With the first Wednesday just around the corner, the district has increased its efforts to generate media coverage of the change. (Its most recent press release can be found here.)  Among teachers, Professional Learning Teams are widely supported. If it’s done correctly, they say it’s almost a can’t-miss strategy.

There will be many ways to confirm that prediction by the end of the school year. In the meantime, here’s a temporary measure: Take note of whether those expected complaints slow down to a trickle.

Noteworthy…

… Keith Sutton was sworn in this week as the newest member of the Wake County school board. Sutton will fill the remainder of Rosa Gill’s term in the District 4 seat. Gill was recently appointed to a state House seat formerly held by Sen. Dan Blue.

…… The Wake County school board is being recognized by the National School Boards Association and the Council of Urban Boards of Education for its achievements and academic progress.  Wake is one of five districts that will be featured at an October conference sponsored by the national organizations. School board Chair Kevin Hill will participate in presentations about Wake County's diversity policy.

… School board candidates in all four contested board districts will participate in separate debates in September sponsored by local area chamber of commerce and Wake Education Partnership. The series of debates, detailed here, are scheduled to be streamed live on the web by NBC17.com and made available later for viewing on the internet.

… It was incorrectly noted in the last email edition of In Context that Richard Urquhart, a member of Wake Education Partnership’s Board of Directors, was recently named a 2009 inductee into the Raleigh Hall of Fame. The honor belongs to Richard’s father. We regret the error.

Wake Education Partnership is a 501(c)(3) non-profit created in 1983 to support public schools, in part by educating the community on current school issues. Most of its financial support comes from local business. Send comments to Tim Simmons, VP Communications, at  tsimmons@wakeedpartnership.org