News-Record.com

Members of the Guilford County Board of Education made a presentation to Greensboro Chamber of Commerce members this morning. Here's a Chalkboard-only story on that breakfast meeting:

GREENSBORO - Guilford County Board of Education members made their case for a funding increase to Greensboro Chamber of Commerce members Thursday morning.

The school board is asking the county for a $14.6 million funding increase for the 2005-06 school year. Commissioners will begin listening to budget requests Thursday evening, but superintendent Terry Grier said he believes county manager Willie Best's budget proposal will include about a $7 million raise for schools - or only half of the requested increase.

That's less than the $9 million-plus school district officials calculate they will need just to cover rising costs. The district is projected to grow by more than 1,500 students next year, while energy and fuel bills continue to rise.

"This is real money we're going to have to spend to be in the same place," school board chairman Alan Duncan said.

Board members have held a series of meetings with community groups in recent weeks to boost support for the budget request.

In addition, the school board wants to spend additional money to:

-Lower ninth-grade English and math class sizes at Dudley, Smith, Andrews and High Point Central high schools.

-Hire extra staff to give all fourth- and fifth-grade teachers a daily planning period.

-Boost the maintenance budget, which Duncan said has been neglected in recent years.

-Fund programs that address dropouts, school discipline and student suspensions.

The county provides roughly 28 percent of the school district's budget. About 66 percent comes from the state and 6 percent from the federal government. But the county funding is the only portion that is negotiable, so every year, board members make their case for greater county funding. Typically, the commissioners provide some extra money, but not as much as board members request.

Duncan said he expects a state funding cut this year, meaning the local budget request is even more critical.

County Commissioners this week have been meeting with departments and agencies to go over their 2005-06 budget requests. The Guilford County Board of Education gets its chance from 6-7 p.m. Wednesday.

The meeting is in the "blue" room of the Old Courthouse downtown, not the commissioners' regular meeting room.

Chairman Alan Duncan has been the point man for making the budget pitch in the past. But expect to see most if not all of the school board members in the audience for support and several school officials on hand to answer questions.

Two years ago the session bore fruit for the school system. Commissioners were persuaded to give the district its entire budget request that year. Last year the schools got half of what they requested. County Manager Willie Best's recommendation for 2005-06 is along that same line -$7.6 million, or about half of the $14.6 million increase the school board wants.

These meetings are open to the public although there is no public comment period. One caution: seating is limited. (The blue room is much smaller than the commissioners' regular meeting room.)

Worried you won't get your say? Don't be. Commissioners will have a public hearing on the entire proposed budget at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the Old Courthouse in the regular meeting room. Public comment is allowed at this meeting.
Here is the link to the public notice of the hearing. And this is the county manager's 2005-06 budget message.

Just a quick heads-up: Tuesday night's Guilford County Board of Education meeting has been moved. The meeting originally was scheduled for High Point, but now, it will take place at the usual spot - GCS Administrative Offices, 712 N. Eugene St. in downtown Greensboro.

The meeting still will start at 6:45 p.m.

I don't want to interrupt the great discussion we've got going on the school budget - I appreciate all the comments we've received so far - but I thought I would share this with you.

Other North Carolina school districts are having their own budget battles. In Orange County, both school systems (Orange County Schools and Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools) are making the case for more money. Much like in Guilford County, school officials there say they need increased funding just to stay in place.

Over in Raleigh, the Wake County Schools are asking for a $29 million increase and say that if they don't get it, they'll have to make steep cuts, including employee dental care, a tutoring program, some teacher assistants, and arts and foreign language teachers.

But the county manager says the school district routinely spends millions less than it receives, then pockets the money in its reserve fund. In some years, Wake County Schools has spend $22 million less than it received.

And, no, Guilford County Schools doesn't have a comparable treasure chest of a reserve fund. GCS has $556,000 in its fund balance - about one-fourth of one percent of its annual operating budget. Most government thinktanks recommend a reserve fund of 3 to 5 percent, in case an emergency pops up.

It's not exactly like Friends or Everybody Loves Raymond going off the air, but...

The School Zone, Guilford County Schools' cable TV channel, will be off the air for a few days starting Thursday.

The station, which airs on cable channel 2, is undergoing some equipment changes. During this time, The School Zone will air informational slides, not actual programs. District officials expect full programming to resume on Friday, June 24.

One good bit of news: the maintenance will allow The School Zone to broadcast school board meetings live, beginning this fall.

At last night's school board meeting, High Point civic and business leaders made a unified, sometimes emotional case for turning Simeon Stadium over to the city.

Simeon is where Andrews and High Point Central have played their home football games for the past 30 years. The school board owns it, but the City of High Point has offered to operate it and city officials made their case to the school board Tuesday night.

In exchange for a long-term lease, the city says it will renovate Simeon. Mayor Becky Smothers provided photos that show Simeon isn't exactly in great shape these days. The concrete is crumbling in some spots. Bathroom sinks are rusted. The toilets in the visitors bathroom don't even have stalls. Smothers said that if the city takes over Simeon, it will free up money that the school board can spend on other needs.

But if the school board is interested in the deal, they didn't tip their hand Tuesday night. Board members agreed to form a committee to study the proposal, but that's as far as they would go.

So what's your take on the Simeon debate?

High Point reporter John Vandiver wrote this piece on Sunday about criminal background checks for teachers. North Carolina is one of only four states that does not require the checks. It is left to individual school systems to decide the scope of any background checks.

Guilford County Schools uses a private firm to check criminal records in North Carolina. In certain situations, the district may also perform a limited out-of-state check. But national checks are never done.

It would cost $38 per teacher to conduct national background checks, which access the FBI's criminal database. A one-time check of the district's existing teachers would cost about $164,000. And with about 500 new teachers hired each year, the district would pay about $19,000 annually to check new employees.

Why is this important? There have been two incidents in as many years in Guilford County Schools where employees working with children were found to have served time in prison - one for armed robbery and the other for a drug conviction.

What's your take on criminal background checks? Should the state pay for them? Should the school system find the money to do broader checks itself? Fingerprinting teachers for FBI checks is standard in most states. (However, I don't know if those states pick up the tabs or if the local school systems do.)

What about infringing on a person's civil rights?

"We probably feel that would be invasive," Eddie Davis III, president of the N.C. Association of Educators, said of fingerprinting prospective teachers. "Unless we get to a point where there's a major problem, I would think local school districts should deal with this. It seems to be working now."

Davis also opposes retroactively conducting background checks for current teachers.

"Where does it stop?" Davis said. "Will it be drug testing teachers next?"

So, what do you think?

As you read Sunday, the N.C. General Assembly is considering a bill that would restrict the amount of junk food schools are allowed to sell via vending machines.

The bill is designed to combat childhood obesity, which has soared in the last 20 years. Childhood obesity is linked to a wide range of health problems, including heart disease, diabetes and some cancers.

However, schools depend on vending to fill funding gaps, from buying postage in the main office to paying for student field trips. Some are concerned that the vending bill would reduce the amount of money those sources bring in.

Guilford County Schools - and North Carolina, for that matter - received a lot of red ink on a state writing assessment.

Fewer than half of GCS students in grades 4, 7 and 10 passed the state writing test in 2005. By comparison, more than 80 percent of district students passed the state reading test and nearly 90 percent passed the math exam.

District officials admit they haven't paid as much attention to writing as they should, but say they will re-emphasize it starting this fall. They'll have to: writing scores from the 2005-06 school year once again will count toward the state's ABCs of Public Education report card.

Joe Camel doesn't carry the same weight in North Carolina as he used to.

On Wednesday morning, state leaders will hold a rally in Raleigh to celebrate more than half of the state's school systems adopting 100 percent tobacco-free policies. Guilford superintendent Terry Grier will join Lt. Governor Beverly Perdue and State Board of Education chairman Howard Lee at the rally.

Guilford County Schools was the state's first large, urban district to ban all tobacco products on campus, doing so in 2001. The policy applies to employees and visitors, even at high school football games. Even school board members who light up don't do so at the GCS office - they smoke on the public sidewalk just off of school property.

Things sure have changed from my high school days in the 1980s. One high school in my hometown had a designated "smokin' tree" where students could puff away during lunch.

Will $11 million more from county commissioners be enough?

On Thursday, the Guilford County Board of Education will discuss the county's decision on school funding for next year. Commissioners passed their budget last week, approving an additional $11 million for the schools. The school board had asked for $14.6 million more. Of that amount, about $10 million was just to cover rising expenses, such as fuel and insurance.

Commissioners, led by Democrats, gave the schools enough to cover basic rising costs plus about $1 million extra they wanted to go toward teacher raises. Commissioners can ask all they want, but the school board has no legal obligation to spend money on what commissioners want.

Should the district spend the money on the teacher raises? Should it go somewhere else? Remember, the board was looking to spend some of the money on anti-racism and classroom management training; hiring a foreign language coordinator and keeping a technology or science coordinator at General Greene Elementary; and reducing class size in ninth-grade English and math classes in the district's four high schools most impacted by poverty: Andrews, Dudley, High Point Central and Smith.

Other factors to consider:
*state cuts could be more or less than anticipated. Until the state budget is approved, school officials are only making their best guesses on what might happen based on actions in the legislature
*schools should be able to reinstate about $776,000 in cuts from this year. That cost was included in the board's base budget request (that nearly $10 million figure).

The Triad's second-largest school district is projecting a growth boom in the next few years.

Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools officials expect the district's enrollment to reach nearly 50,000, up 1,100 from last year. That enrollment may reach 60,000 by 2013-14. Because of the growth, Forsyth officials are talking about a bond referendum to build more schools and renovate others.

Guilford County Schools expects more than 68,000 students when classes start back this fall. That's a 1,500-student increase from last year.

As reported in today's News & Record, local teachers got some good news and some bad news - well, possibly some bad news - when it comes to their pay.

The good news is that Guilford County Schools teachers will get their first check two weeks earlier than last year, thanks to a provision in a new state law.

The bad news? Well, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners gave the school system $1 million extra, with the idea that money would go to teacher raises. And the school board says that's exactly what they want to do with the money - but they can't guarantee it until they receive their state funding.

The state budget is still up in the air. If school funding is cut too deeply, school board members say they may not be able to afford to give teachers a pay raise.