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School funding questioned

Posted on April 2, 2009April 2, 2009 by Staff

By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

Incorrect information included in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools budget documents falsely indicated a wide discrepancy between proposed funding for Carrboro High School and the district’s other two high schools, school officials said Monday.

Parents had expressed concern about the apparent disparity, drawing attention to the matter, and school officials then corrected the misinformation and informed parents of the error.

According to school officials, proposed funding for Carrboro High is $6,939 per student, compared with $7,937 for Chapel Hill High and $7,197 for East Chapel Hill High. The incorrect information showed funding for Carrboro High at $5,211 per student, compared with $7,977 for Chapel Hill High and $7,417 for East Chapel Hill High.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education is set to approve its recommended operating budget request to the county, including the funding for high schools, at a meeting tonight (Thursday).

According to Superintendent Neil Pedersen, the remaining disparity between the high schools’ funding levels is due to staff salaries and benefits.

“We think that’s attributable … to more veteran staff being at Chapel Hill and, to some extent, East,” he said.

Pedersen said Carrboro High has a somewhat younger staff than the other two high schools, adding, “I don’t think that speaks to the quality of the staff.”

Despite the correction to the funding data, some Carrboro High parents say the inequity remains.

“Smaller schools, by nature, require more faculty, and therefore funding, per student to be able to offer a similar breadth of courses to students,” parent Susana Dancy said. “Yet, the school district uses the same formula for allocating teaching positions as it does for the larger schools. As a result, the course offerings are thin, the teachers stretched, and the learning is therefore compromised.”

Dancy also pointed out that the teachers at Carrboro High are less experienced than those at the other two high schools.

“While I do not have complaints about our teachers, I think it is unfortunate that we are asking our least experienced teachers to teach more courses to a student body with a larger at-risk population,” she said.

About 24 percent of Carrboro High students receive free or reduced-cost lunches, compared with 18 percent of students at Chapel Hill and 13 percent at East Chapel Hill. In addition, 12 percent of Carrboro High students are ESL students, compared with 6 percent at Chapel Hill and 8 percent at East.

Board members will review the budget tonight and prepare for more than $3 million in potential cuts to state and local funding by identifying possible reductions, which could include personnel cuts, a decrease in local salary supplements, furloughs for staff and more.
For more information, including budget documents, visit chccs.k12.nc.us

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