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The NHCS Turnaround Task Force's ideas are taking shape

WHQR | By Rachel Keith

Published February 2, 2024 at 11:24 AM EST

Members of the Turnaround Taskforce at the January 2024 meeting

In January, the New Hanover County Schools Turnaround Task Force held its fifth meeting. The task force was created to help support the district’s lowest-performing schools; this meeting focused on narrowing possible recommendations to address the performance gap amongst the district’s schools.

Since the task force’s creation, two solutions have taken off: procuring New Hanover Community Endowment funding for additional support services for Freeman Elementary students and their families — and the establishment of “Friends of Public Schools,” an organization that hopes to eventually fund teacher support initiatives.

Scott Whisnant is a member of the task force and its mental health subcommittee. He’s the former Director of Government Affairs at New Hanover Regional Medical Center.

He’s been compiling and analyzing school performance test results via schooldigger.com — a site that pulls from publicly available databases kept by the North Carolina Department of Instruction.

Whisnant notes that at the root of this performance gap is the segregation of the district’s schools by socioeconomic status.

“It should surprise no one that the top ten performing elementary schools are also the ten with the lowest rates of free reduced lunch; it's almost a one-to-one correlation. [...] This is a poverty story. This is not a racial story. It's not political. It is a poverty story. When you have a school full of [lower income families] that means you get low performance. That's the cycle we're here to break,” Whisnant said.

Scott Whisnant's analysis data from schooldigger.com

While Whisnant has been clear in the past that race is invariably intertwined with socioeconomics, poverty underlies all of it.

NHCS recently went through an analysis of enrollment in its schools — and the findings mimic this socioeconomic trend. Those schools that are unenrolled are typically the ones with higher concentrations of poverty.

Matthew Cropper of Cropper GIS, a consultant hired by the New Hanover County Schools district, said overcrowding exists throughout the district (mainly in higher-performing schools) — and that it cannot “redistrict” its way out of this issue, but will have to plan for expanded capacity at existing schools and the building of new ones.

To fix the issue, the New Hanover County Commission, along with the school board, are exploring the possibility of a school bond on the November ballot.

Cropper said when the district undergoes its next round of redistricting it should make schools as “demographically diverse as possible,” meaning that there’s racial balance in the district. The question moving forward is whether there’s the political will to do so.

After revisiting the task force’s overarching mission, members moved to discuss their experiences visiting some of the schools where they want to target support.

School visits, and the turnaround work going on now

The task force has identified principal leadership as one of the biggest contributors to bettering school climate and increasing test scores.

This school year, former Sunset Park Principal Diego Lehocky moved to Forest Hills Elementary to improve the school. And according to some of the task force members who recently visited his school, it looks like he’s getting results.

School board member Stephanie Walker, who is on the task force’s mental health subcommittee, described a recent visit to Forest Hills.

“The last time I went [before Lehocky], when we were in the principal's office, everybody’s walkie was going off, but when we were there [recently], I don't think it went off one time. It definitely makes a difference when you set a culture at a school and you feel supported. And he's already said this to us before, he's part of a team, and he can't do what he does without them,” Walker said.

Board member Stephanie Kraybill, who attended the January meeting, has been volunteering at the school since last year. She, too, saw the positive impact Lehocky is making.

She described an incident where the school supported a student in need.

“This one little girl was so frustrated and just was starting to have a meltdown, but the teacher just calmly made a phone call and the interventionist came in, sat down at our table, and was able to calm down this young lady, and we were able to continue, so it was all so seamless; it was already built into their culture,” Kraybill said.

The task force has helped start a first-grade reading buddy program. As a part of this, Kraybill shows up on Thursdays at Forest Hills.

“The kids love it; they want you to come back; they’re like, ‘What did you bring us this time?’ They love to read; love to ask questions,” she said.

Taskforce solutions that have legs

Marrio Jeter, who is the director of operations at Communities in Schools and another member of the task force, introduced early on the idea of a full-service community schools model (FSCS) to help some of the lower-performing schools.

This model provides considerable resources to student and their families. Ones like additional health and social services, afterschool and summer programs, medical clinics, and workforce/job skill development.

Because of the New Hanover Endowment’s recent grant award of $3.2 million to CIS — they can now bring the plan to fruition. While some of this money will go to continuing and expanding CIS’ Freedom School(s), a summer literacy program, it will also go toward establishing a full-service community model at Freeman Elementary next school year.

A spokesperson for CIS said while planning for Freeman’s designation as a full-service model, initially Endowment funding will provide the school with, “tutors, behavior specialists, and additional community partners providing resources.”

Back in June, Jeter told the task force that his organization was applying for a full-service community model grant through the U.S. Department of Education; however, Jeter said that there were about 300 applications and only 11 were chosen. He said CIS is going to apply again but this time use this “seed money” from the Endowment to prove to the DOE that the concept is already working.

Another idea that is taking off is “Friends of Public Schools,” a support organization that could provide a host of wraparound services for teachers; CIS recently approved the “Friends of Public Schools” as a part of the non-profit’s 501(c)3 organization (which would mean it wouldn’t have to wait two years to apply for Endowment funding, as a newly formed 501(c)3 would).

Whisnant brought the ask to CIS, and described that in addition to providing employees with additional stipends, up to $10,000, they could think outside the box, like providing specialty “concierge services” to staff.

“We got to retain teachers; we’ve got to make teachers' lives better, particularly at these high-poverty schools. What if you're a teacher and somebody washed your car while you're at work? Or what if somebody changed the oil right there in the parking lot? What if somebody came and mowed the yard for you? What if somebody did your taxes for you at almost no cost?” he said.

Whisnant said this organization, in addition to fundraising for teacher stipends and these services, would advocate for favorable interest rates when public school employees are looking to buy a home.

“Money talks. We can talk about a lot of things about making their lives better, but money, money ultimately talks,” Whisnant said.

He said the ultimate goal is to get funding from the New Hanover Community Endowment during the next grant cycle. And if it’s approved, this organization also hopes to develop a “global PTA” for the district schools that don’t have one. They’ll also look to fund teacher recognitions and lunches, teacher certifications for trauma-informed practices, school field trips, and classroom supplies.

Roadblocks ahead

While there has been some influx of funds from the New Hanover Endowment for specific purposes like the building of the FSCS model at Freeman and $1.6 million for the district to become part of the Health Care Talent Collaborative with UNCW, CFCC, and the Greater Wilmington Chamber Foundation, it won’t help with the district’s $10 million shortfall in fund balance.

Walker presented this reality to the task force.

“From our last [task force] meeting we learned that we need to find ways to support staff; that's a big deal. Teachers feel the funding cuts. The [district] explain[ed] that the cuts were the one-time [ESSER] funding, but the reduced resources are still felt by teachers, and I will also say after our budget brief last week, we're in for even more cuts,” Walker said.

The district recently also put in place a hiring freeze while details of the budget are being worked out. The district does have the following realities to face: stagnating student enrollment, diminishing COVID relief funds — and the state budget that provides more funding for charter schools and private school vouchers.

Additionally, Elizabeth Redenbaugh, development director for Coastal Horizons, who is part of the mental health subcommittee, talked about the urgency of fixing the schools' mental health therapists' waitlists.

“Because if you're in a crisis, you need help now. You cannot wait a month to get fit into somebody's schedule; otherwise, things can go really wrong, fast,” she said.

This subcommittee also presented the work left to be completed — how to fund more behavior support and family liaison specialists in high-poverty schools. (*You can view the subcommittee’s full report at the end of this article.)

The task force subcommittee is also looking for ways to fund a myriad of other initiatives like universal pre-K and additional afterschool tutoring.

Additionally, this subcommittee suggested that the lower-performing schools be turned into year-round ones to prevent the ‘summer slide’ when the kids aren’t getting the support they need in June and July — and to explore the idea of reinventing the lower-performing magnet schools like Snipes Academy.

What’s next

Whisnant said for the task force’s next March meeting, the mental health subcommittee is “going get the data that goes behind these suggestions, and work toward putting the dollar amount to these requests.” He said it would answer the question, “What would it cost?”

He said they also need to identify which organizations they’re specifically going to collaborate with on initiatives like universal pre-K and expanded mental health support.

The leadership committee, headed by Natalie English of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce and Rob Kaiser of the Greater Wilmington Business Journal, said they’re looking into leadership programs, suggesting ones modeled after Wilma or Leadership Wilmington for district employees.

However, English told WHQR there are no concrete plans in place, and that they’re “still in the development stages with the school system.”

The community outreach committee, with Jeter and Wilmington Mayor ProTem Clifford Barnett as lead members, said that they’re working to compile a comprehensive list of resources for students and families.

These three main committees will share their progress at the next March meeting.

While this January meeting was technically slated to be a parent roundtable, this will take place on March 13. Parents should contact their principals about being invited to speak.

School Mental Health Committee -- January Recommendations by Ben Schachtman on Scribd

Catch up on the work of the Turnaround Task Force – and other related reporting: