Educator pay, including reinstating Master’s pay
Josie Barnhart is vice chair of the New Hanover County school board. She’s also led the district’s legislative committee. The board recently approved a resolution that asks the state legislature to raise the base salary for educators by at least 5%. Notably, recent increases have gone to beginning teachers and not necessarily veteran ones.
“There's a freeze at that 15 to 2[5]-year mark. We want to support everybody, and nothing's getting cheaper,” she said.
District superintendent Dr. Christopher Barnes is also focused on this bracket level of experience, where he sees compensation stagnating.
“The state formula freezes salaries for teachers from year 15 to 25, and that's a significant amount of time for a plateau to be built into a salary schedule,” he said.
While it’s not on the school board’s approved list of 12 legislative priorities, Barnes is asking for the reinstatement of Master’s pay. He argues that if the General Assembly approved some of these pay increases, the center of attention could be back on educating students.
“Research shows that the best way to get people focused on the work is to take the issue of money off the table. Pay people enough that that's not our conversation; we're [now] talking about kids. And I think that's what we want,” he said.
Senator Michael Lee is the chair of Senate committees on appropriations/base budget and education/higher education for the 2025-2026 session. Lee has said that getting their National Boards certification is how teachers should earn higher pay, not a Master’s.
Barnes agreed that certification is “an excellent, nationally driven, research-based program; it's wonderful that the state recognizes it.” Still, he added that teachers should be compensated for earning additional degrees that make them better teachers in the classroom.
“I'd be more than happy to see a raise and the restoration of Master's pay for teachers or opportunities for advancement without cost. Things that would build the efficacy of our teaching staff,” he said.
Additionally, Barnhart and Barnes expressed gratitude to the legislature for funding some advanced teaching roles within the district.
Staffing levels and allotment formulas
Alongside a pay increase, Barnes’ top priority is for the legislature to change the allotment formula — how many educators the state provides based on the number of students.
“So one of the funding sources that the state uses is something called instructional support, a sort of catch-all involving social workers, counselors, instructional coaches, media coordinators, and mental health therapists. Right now, the state's formula gives one position for every 417 kids, not one of each, just one,” he said.
Barnhart said the board is advocating for the state to allocate a multi-tier system of support (MTSS) coordinators at the pre-K and elementary levels and the district’s low-performing schools. She said this staff would help to close the achievement gap and learning loss from the pandemic.
Barnes added, “Sometimes you have between 5% and 10% who need specific intervention to get them to be a place where they're successful. So a teacher, sometimes with having 25 or 30 kids in a classroom, having that MTSS support come in and be able to do some differentiation work and catch up work so that every kid gets across the line.”
They’re asking the state to fund these coordinators in the earlier years.
“The gap starts in kindergarten and widens as the kids get older. So the earlier we intervene, the quicker we can get kids to pace where they're keeping up. Generally, if they are at grade level by third grade, they tend to stay there. As we're starting to see things like class sizes increase, you're starting to see some other interventions we had available to us decreasing,” Barnes said.
Barnes said that an example of an unfunded mandate is that the state requires the district to have a counselor at every elementary school.
“But we're not funded for that, and so we struggle sometimes to make sure that we have the proper amount of services for all of our kids, and the state funding formula doesn't catch up to where students’ needs are now,” he said.
Barnhart said they’d like to pilot an alternative funding formula for staffing based on the needs of the district’s exceptional children (EC).
The legislature would then “base the amount of money a student receives on the needs of the students, rather a flat amount for everyone, so, [for example, that would mean] more flexibility on maybe at one school, they might want three teaching assistants [TAs] versus two full time [teachers],” she said.
What district leaders want legislators representing New Hanover County to know
Barnes said he wants state representatives like Michael Lee, Ted Davis, Bill Rabon, and Deb Butler to know more about the current conditions in the district’s schools.
“This is what it feels like on the ground level. This is what it feels like in a school. I think that what we're looking for is just the ability to engage with them about what public schools are like now, which is different than it was 10 years ago,” he said.
Barnhart said the legislators she’s spoken with are open to a conversation and are listening, but decisions in state government take time.
“There's always an opportunity for movement. It is just painfully slow, and it would be much easier if it were faster, but when you're dealing with hundreds of people, I understand, unfortunately,” she said.
Barnes said he’s committed to showing the commissioners and legislators the return on their investment (ROI), i.e., where the funding went and what data supports how it was spent.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure if we get kids educated and as productive members of society. That's a rising tide that floats all boats,” adding that many of those investments are needed to support the earliest learners.
Barnes reiterated that public schools are still “the best game in town. You can look at any metric you want; we keep kids safe and create student opportunities. And we just want to ensure we get that word out because that's what we do.”
Another funding issue many public education advocates have expressed frustration about is the General Assembly’s expansion of the Opportunity Scholar program. Over the next decade, the program will send roughly $6.5 billion in vouchers to private schools. But Barnes said he’s zoning in on what he can control.
“What the state does is the state's responsibility to make that choice. That's what they're elected to do. I want us to fund public schools fully, and that's my focus,” he said.
Still clearing up confusion about what eats up a district’s budget
Barnes said they are no longer dipping into their fund balance to provide for additional staff. Still, he reiterates that since that’s a new fiscal rule, “it does affect the teachers and the families and the students at the ground level, at the school level, because we don't have the number of resources we've had in the past.”
The legislature is also supporting public schools using an arrears model, which means the district will know the state funding amount before the start of the new school year.
“They don't fund us and then take it back,” Barnhart said. “So that helps us at least plan better ahead, so we're not scrambling if we have a drop in enrollment.”
Barnes also repeatedly tells the public that 83% of the district’s budget goes to salaries and benefits, that benefits like retirement have increased 5% over the past couple of years, and that other social security costs have also increased.
“And it just becomes harder and harder to keep the same staff level you had before. But even though last year, you can look at our funding streams and see that the state and local funding increased. Still, our federal funding decreased so much with the loss of that ESSER funding that state and local [increase] couldn't even come close to compensating the amount of money that was,” he said.
Capital funding
In addition to increasing teacher pay and changing allotment formulas, the board is asking the legislature to divert more school lottery funds to capital projects. This is part of the New Hanover County Commission’s ask of the legislature, too. However, that increase pales compared to the district’s needs, and the county commission is statutorily responsible for paying for capital. Barnhart said a school bond could be on the horizon.
“As a board, we have not come together to have that bond ask, but I think there is heavy interest in that conversation,” she said.
They also have a draft plan for Isaac Bear High School on the UNCW campus. These funds could help pay for its construction.
Once the district receives a capital facility plan for the next three years, it will use that information to develop priorities for a possible bond request. The last plan, which identified half a billion in district building needs, was five years ago.
Changing the calendar law
Barnes and the board are asking the legislature to pass a law allowing districts calendar flexibility.
That means the district could align its calendar with that of Cape Fear Community College so that its students enrolled in the Career and College Program (CCP) could take more of these credits.
“We're looking at three E's: enlistment, enrollment, or employment. I want every kid to graduate from this school system with one or all three choices, and this is a great opportunity. But our calendar continually vexes us. Having the ability to align our calendar with the community college would be a game changer,” Barnes said.
Another reason to do this would be the unpredictability of the weather; it would allow Barnes to build in and account for days potentially lost due to hurricanes or other extreme weather events.
“It's not fair to ask a school board or me as a superintendent to violate state law to do what's good for kids,” he said.
While some districts have decided to defy the calendar law, Barnes does not want to take the route.
“It's not fair for us to expect the board to put themselves in that sort of legality of breaking general statute. And I don't like the idea of picking and choosing for ourselves which ones we're going to follow and which ones we're not going to follow,” Barnes added.
Pre-K classes and hands-on learning truck
The district is still reeling from the loss of the federal Head Start program. Instead, the five-year grant was awarded to the private organization Excel Learning.
Barnes said he’d like to see universal pre-K in the county, but at a minimum, he’d like to see the 16 classrooms they’ve lost restored.
Barnhart said the board would like to join the Wilmington Home Builders Association in asking for an interactive truck called ‘Be Pro, Be Proud’ for the southeastern region because she said, right now, the truck is booked two years in advance.
She said the truck shows students the basics of operating a crane, welding, and truck driving, which would help support students who want to work in vocational fields.