Board of Education takes look at budget
By Joey Pitchford
Published in News on April 30, 2017 12:20 AM
The Wayne County Board of Education took a preliminary look at its budget for the 2017-2018 school year at a work session Friday morning, which includes a request for funding to provide core-subject textbooks to every student in Wayne County.
School officials estimate that doing so would cost $5 million the first year, followed by around $2 million per year after that to keep the books updated as new versions come out and curriculums are adopted. This would allow every student in Wayne County to have a textbook in math, science and English, which they would keep with them and bring between home to school.
Textbook availability has been a major topic of discussion at the last several board meetings, with members of the community voicing frustration that students do not have access to up-to-date books, or even books at all. Wayne County Public Schools Superintendent Michael Dunsmore said that, without books, teachers are often forced to make a large number of copies and work packets in order to send work home with students.
Many of the district's current books became out-of-date after North Carolina adopted common core standards, and state funding does not come close to providing for a full adoption of that system.
Board members expressed doubt that the Wayne County Board of Commissioners would approve that kind of funding. Especially while the district attempts to move forward with technology initiatives which would provide electronic devices to students during class, the tension between funding textbooks and funding technology figures to be a recurring issue going forward.
In other funding discussion, Dunsmore said that the recently-passed House Bill 13 is a step in the right direction for the district. The bill originally indefinitely gave back flexibility to districts to exceed mandated class sizes in order to avoid cutting art, music and physical education programs. It was later amended in the Senate committee on K-12 education to provide that flexibility for a period of one year.
At that point, districts will once again have to comply with the General Assembly-mandated class size requirements which had many districts scrambling to find a way to meet this year.
Legislators have said they will provide funding for "enhancement classes" such as art and music by that point, but no such language appears in the bill.
Dunsmore has said multiple times that smaller class sizes are a good goal to work toward, but that meeting strict limits by the 2017-2018 school year would be impossible. He said the year of reprieve will help the district sort out strategies for reducing class sizes, though many including Gov. Roy Cooper have called the bill a stopgap measure which only delays the problem.