Local

NHCS Turnaround Task Force considers budget options, measurable metrics

WHQR | By Rachel Keith

Published January 24, 2025 at 1:44 PM EST

NHCS shows where its funding comes from.

Early in January 2025, the New Hanover County Schools Turnaround Task Force met to give feedback on the district’s budget proposal to county commissioners — a part of the interim superintendent’s request for the community to submit ideas to move the needle on student learning.

Interim superintendent’s budget overview

The task force was organized in mid-2023 to help address New Hanover County's lowest-performing public schools. Interim superintendent Dr. Christopher Barnes gave a presentation to the task force members — a part of his effort to educate the community on how the NHCS budget works. (*Note: you can view his presentation at the end of this report.)

Barnes said that NHCS has a $315 million operating budget: a majority of it comes from the state (54%), followed by the county (30%), and the federal government (16%). About 80% of the budget goes toward paying for personnel. The school district is the second largest employer in the county.

While budget discussions in the past have focused on concerns over losing student enrollment over the last three years, those levels have actually remained more or less stagnant, with a 1% increase since 2022 (24,602 students to 24,858). However, Barnes mentioned that NHCS had around 26,000 students at its peak.

He told the task force that there are only state-mandated classroom caps for kindergarten through 3rd grade. That means, for older students, classrooms are getting crowded.

“After that, it's really fire code, as many of the little kiddos you want to put into a room, but generally, we try to work specifically with our priority schools to keep those averages lower than others,” he said.

Addressing that issue, Barnes reiterated an argument he's been making at public meetings for a while: the funding allotment formula for teachers and staff — determined by state legislators — has not changed in over ten years.

“The state funding formula says that you can have one month of an assistant principal [AP] for every 98.53 kids you have, which, for us, would translate to about one position for every 1,000 kids. One AP. Now, does anybody have a kid at Hoggard, Laney? 2,000 kids — two assistant principals? Is that enough?”

When the state funding model falls short of funding needs — the county often picks up the rest. During the county's annual budget negotiations, commissioners review the school district's budget proposal, which is ultimately part of the county's overall budget.

“The state gives us 24 APs for the entire district; we fund 56. The rest of all of that is paid locally,” Barnes said.

He added there aren’t enough funds from the state or the county to fund all the art and music teachers, so schools must share that personnel.

The state also allocates 60 positions, including media coordinators, guidance counselors, instructional coaches, and social workers. The county funds 76 counselors and 36 media coordinators, which doesn’t include social workers or instructional coaches.

“I've been in HR for about 10 years, and I left and went to Nashville, Tennessee for a couple of years, and ran their HR program, came back, and I thought to myself, ‘Oh, they'll fix this by the time I get back;’ it's gotten worse over the past 10 years,” he said.

Assistant Superintendent Julie Varnam also repeated the need for Congress to fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) program to the extent outlined in the bill's passage, which was 40% of the average per pupil expenditures related to these student needs. Now she says they are only funding typically 13%.

The NHCS board recently signed a resolution in November asking Congress to fund the complete 40%.

Another place the district loses funding is by diverting money to charter schools. This year, about $7.2 million will go to those students from the district’s budget.

NHCS Chief Financial Officer Ashley Sutton said that if students go into the charter or private system and then return to the district the same year, much of the money still leaves the district; all of the state money is effectively gone (because the state-level per pupil is only appropriated annually), although county money, which is paid monthly, can be redirected back to the district if a student leaves and comes back.

Varnam said when students return to the public system, some need additional services.

“Many times, we see those kids returning to the school district because those parents are being told, ‘your child has services beyond what we can provide.’ That's not legally sound, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen frequently,” she said.

Turnaround Task Force's goals and datasets for budget ask

Barnes told the task force that he wanted to gain feedback on their budget priorities and how they could show a return on investment (ROI) to the county commissioners if funding were approved. That meant they would need to identify data to track to justify this investment. Barnes said he hopes to eventually present six initiatives he’d like county commissioners to fund. For other funding, Barnes and task force members are hoping for the New Hanover Community Endowment to support them.

Task force member Elizabeth Redenbaugh of Coastal Horizons said that while ROI is important, education and community well-being improvements are not always achieved within a year.

“If you want that immediate ROI, that quick win, and you won't get that. I mean, you've got to understand you're in this for the longer game,” she said.

The task force members came up with the following goals: addressing discrepancies and disparities between schools and based on race for end-of-year test (EOGs) scores, focusing on student mental health, improving student behavior, and ensuring resources are available for exceptional children (EC) and academically/intelligently gifted (AIG) students.

Barnes asked what some data points could be used to prove the achievement of those goals, for example, the discrepancies and disparities. Task force members said measuring the proficiency gap between students along racial lines. For example, last year, the average difference between White and Black elementary students was 49 points on EOGs.

Barnes voiced concern about using test score disparities based on race, saying, “Those are so intermingled with poverty, with other factors. I think it's hard to tease that out, but if you're looking for a hard and fast data point, having less lower performing schools would be one.”

Barnes told the group to consider ways to prove student learning — as opposed to focusing on staffing levels — when it comes to a budget ask for the county. Dr. Stephanie Willis, the principal of Snipes Elementary, said that the focus on staffing ultimately leads to support of student learning and achievement.

“All those are very important people like your counselors, your social workers. If I go down to a half-time social worker and have one counselor for all 400 kids, my enrollment and my absenteeism will rise. I need that dedicated person in the building because that's what they do on a continual basis, all day long, making sure kids get to school,” she said.

Additionally, Willis said her school would gain more students and community support if they had the funding to organize more community performances and plays.

“When you start sharing all of your resources, you don't have the people to put in the time to do that, to go into the community, so the community doesn't see you anymore,” she said.

The task force also discussed the disparity between schools in terms of funding for their own positions. For example, Wrightsville Beach Elementary can hire additional staff members that the state or the commission doesn’t fund because their Foundation and PTA pay for them. Other schools don’t have this ability. The same goes for special programs like the ‘Leader in Me’ program that PTAs at Holly Shelter and Porters Neck pay for.

To improve student mental health, the group cited datasets such as waitlists for support, the percentage of staff receiving trauma-informed training, student referrals, absentee rates, and suspension numbers.

Scott Whisnant, taskforce leader and the former government liaison for NHRMC, said that enrollment could be a data point. He said if students return to the public school system, it would improve things.

“That much money, almost $14,000 for every kid [$7,405 from state, $4,177 from local, and $2,211 from federal] you get back by improving. I think that's a metric that the commission would appreciate. The funding is coming in because you've improved your product,” he said.

Whisnant brought up the example of Forest Hills Elementary.

“Over the past 10 years or so, that neighborhood has fled. If they came back, you would suddenly have a different school overnight,” he said.

Barnes added that they’re seeing that shift regarding the district’s middle schools.

“Sometimes you see them come back because of their wealth of choices in our traditional high schools and our signature programs, so how do we stop them from leaving the first place?” he said.

State funding

Jane Morrow, a task force member and executive director of Smart Start of New Hanover County, said they need to focus their advocacy on the state, which provides the majority of funding. She also mentioned the full funding mandated by the Leandro decision.

Barnes responded that his ability to have the most impact on funding is with the county commissioners. But, he said, for the state, he could advocate with legislators to fund Master’s pay, higher teacher salaries, and to improve those staffing allotment formulas.

He also mentioned that in the past the county used a different supplement formula for teachers who worked at the lower-performing schools, which could improve teacher retention there.

Varnam also weighed in on the current funding allotment, noting that it's based on optimistic assumptions about how prepared a student is for school.

“It assumes that every child that enters our school is coming from a family that has been able to – this is not about judgment — but coming from a family that has been able to make sure that their kid is ready for that day and ready to learn, but the number of children that come with their needs met outside of the school day and prepared to learn has been getting fewer and fewer and fewer, so the bandwidth of the existing staff cannot meet the true needs of all of our students because of the level of intervention that many of our kids need just to keep coming back to school. We want them every day and can't get them every day,” she said.

Task force member and retired NHCS educator Chris Furr said he doesn’t think the public understands the amount of triage staff have to do with families and students daily. He shared anecdotes on how much counseling support one student would need to stay in school.

“How do you do that without having four APs [assistant principals] or four or five counselors? There sometimes isn't enough time in the day,” he said.

Budge Ppt 2025 by Ben Schachtman on Scribd

NHCS Turnaround Task Force considers budget options, measurable metrics

Early in January 2025, the New Hanover County Schools Turnaround Task Force met to give feedback on the district’s budget proposal to county commissioners — a part of the interim superintendent’s request for the community to submit ideas to move the needle on student learning.

Interim superintendent’s budget overview

Turnaround Task Force's goals and datasets for budget ask

State funding

WHQR reporting on the task force