Opinion

Editorial: Two bills address critical needs to help schools reopen

Friday, May 29, 2020 -- Two important proposals will help meet North Carolina's constitutional mandate to provide every child access to a quality education (the Leandro court order) as well as get our schools ready to deal with some urgent needs students will face when they return to school in mid-August.

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CBC Editorial: Friday, May 29, 2020; Editorial #8546
The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company.

There may be a state budget shortfall, in part brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. But the needs of North Carolinians and the critical programs that serve them don’t diminish.

The folks who run the General Assembly have a mantra they recite faithfully, particularly after they bestow another round of tax cuts on the state’s corporations.

“We just don’t have the money,” is their cliché when students in our public schools need to be assured of a quality education. “We just don’t have the money” so every citizen can afford the care they need to stay healthy. “We just don’t have the money” to make sure our prisons are secure and properly staffed. “We just don’t have the money” to maintain our infrastructure and our quality of life.

Too many critical needs have been pushed aside and continue to be short-changed.

Two important proposals will help toward meeting North Carolina’s constitutional mandate to provide every child access to a quality education (the Leandro court order) as well as get our schools ready to deal with some urgent needs students will face when they return to school in mid-August.

One proposal calls for $480 million to school districts to hire more counselors, social workers and psychologists – where schools are already chronically understaffed -- to address trauma caused or exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis.
The other would provide $102 million to make sure there is at least one nurse in each of the state’s public schools.

There are great concerns, and rightly so, about the academic status of students. They’ve been away from the classroom since mid-March. While efforts to use broadband to bring the classroom to student homes have been laudable, too many students lack access.

But the time away has surely taken an emotional and psychological toll on many students. Simply the disruption in routine may have left students disoriented. For others, who already faced trauma and challenges outside the classroom, those problems are magnified. Already, there are indications that mental health issues are spiking around the state and nation.

The bills would provide that our public schools meet levels of staffing for psychologists, social workers and counselors laid out in a 2018 report from the General Assembly’s program evaluation division.
Nurses would be available at every school, throughout the day, and not having to split their time between several schools.

There is the money. Legislators have boasted about their multi-billion-dollar rainy day fund. There are also federal funds that can be used.

This is what North Carolina schools and children need now. No excuses.

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