Wake schools to ask for 5.5% increase in funds from county

Wake County Public School System Superintendent Cathy Q. Moore is recommending a $28.2 million budget increase from Wake County commissioners, what would amount to a 5.5% county funding increase, mostly to address students’ emotional health.

The school board will consider Moore’s $1.9 billion budget proposal over the next month before submitting a final proposal to the commissioners. The budget is mostly state funding, accounting for nearly $1.1 billion next year. The county’s contribution is about 28% of the proposed budget, or $544.2 million. Other local funds comprise $63.6 million, and federal funds make up $259 million.

More than a third of the county’s more than $1.4 billion budget goes to the school district.

The school board will consider Moore’s $1.9 billion operating budget proposal over the next month before submitting a final proposal to the commissioners. The county's current contribution to the budget is $527.9 million.

Moore wants to make permanent a one-time $11.9 million budget increase the county gave the school district last spring during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. She also wants to add $16.3 million to, among other things, increase the number of school counselors, psychologists and social workers.

The district asked that increase last year, but it was not included. Moore is asking for it again because of the stress the pandemic has had on children.

“This was an acute need before the pandemic,” Moore said in her speech to the board. “Teachers routinely told us then that significant academic progress was intertwined with stronger social and emotional support for students. As the pandemic enters its second year, the need for counselors, psychologists and social workers is now painfully obvious.”

The request from the county, if eventually presented to the county, is smaller than the $29.9 million the district asked for last year. Only $11.9 million was funded, and it was only funded on a one-time basis.

District Chief Business Officer David Neter told the board the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t been as severe in the past year as feared or in comparison to previous recessions. Economic projections are optimistic, and the sharp increase in unemployment last spring made a “very quick turnaround,” he said.

Moore’s budget proposal assumes the North Carolina General Assembly will hold school district funding harmless, as it did last year, despite enrollment declines. The General Assembly has not made that commitment.

The budget also includes some risks, district officials said, when it comes to district enrollment projections and anticipated charter school enrollment in the county next year.

The budget increase coincides with a drop in enrollment in the school district, though the district expects the numbers to go back up next year as the COVID-19 pandemic lessens in severity and more students return to physical classroom instruction.

The Wake County Public School System reports this year an average daily membership of 158,883 students, a drop of 1.9% compared to 161,907 students last year. The number the district reported to DPI, unadjusted for attendance mandate violations, was 157,673 students. It was the first enrollment drop in decades for the district.

Average daily membership — enrollment — in traditional public schools is down statewide by nearly 62,000 students, according to North Carolina Department of Public Instruction data analyzed by WRAL earlier this year. The drop is largely from fewer kindergarteners.

Lower enrollment figures can have an impact on state funding for schools. Schools’ funding is based on average daily membership and calculated in one of two ways. Districts with declining enrollment will have their subsequent year funding based on their projected enrollment for that year. Districts with increasing enrollment will have their subsequent year funding based on their enrollment for the current year.

Moore’s proposed budget is more than $100 million more than last year’s, in part because of the county funding increase and in part because of anticipated, but not confirmed, allocations from the latest federal stimulus packages. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has not finalized the funding formula for the second stimulus package. The district estimates $96 million from that package but hasn’t yet estimated an amount from the third, and most recent, stimulus package.

Moore’s budget also calls for increasing the district’s reserves to avoid future fiscal cliffs’ according to the presentation.

The district has a new school opening next year — Willow Spring High School — and plans several new or expanding programs. Those include lengthening the contract terms of instructional assistants and changing the assistant principal formula for elementary and high schools.

Wake County school district officials also presented, during the afternoon board work session, plans so far for a Virtual Academy next year.

Currently, more than 77,000 of the district’s students are enrolled in Virtual Academy, just less than half of students, according to figures provided to WRAL Tuesday. That’s following the district’s plans to open all campuses to Plan A (minimal social distancing), beginning this week.

The district plans to offer a virtual option for those who want it next year, although the details are still being firmed up. On Tuesday, district leaders told the school board their presentation that afternoon would be the “first of several” providing updates on how the district plans to conduct virtual learning next year. The district will have more information at future board meetings later this month.

Elective course offerings likely won’t include performing arts or career and technical education, but just what electives would be offered will depend on how many and which students sign up.

The district wants parents to register for the Virtual Academy for the full upcoming academic year, to minimize the potential movement of students that could complicate course offerings. Sign up likely will be later this spring, which Assistant Superintendent of Academics Drew Cook said would give schools enough time to plan for the academy. Schools will need to firm up staff and course offerings. The sooner students register, the sooner schools can do that and, ideally, Cook said, schedule teachers so that they won’t have to teach bth virtual and in-person students at the same time.

Getting rid of that “concurrent teaching,” Cook said, is a top priority for the upcoming year. Teachers have had to do that this year and are still doing it.

“It’s by no means an ideal scenario for our students or our teachers,” Cook said.

The district will have a community open house on Virtual Academy before registration ends.

The district is only planning for a Virtual Academy next year, although district leaders said they anticipate a desire for virtual learning to linger for families who think it suits their children better than in-person learning.

So Virtual Academy next year would be run out of each school, rather than being a separate school operated at the district-level.

Creating a separate school, Cook said, could require diverting resources from brick-and-mortar schools to the Virtual Academy.

Having Virtual Academy provided by schools, rather than the district, concerned some board members, who noted that elective course offerings will depend on enrollment, which is not expected to be high.

The district is considering how to accommodate schools that have low enrollment, to see what support the district can offer, officials have said.

But many parents will hesitate over sending their children to Virtual Academy is they don’t know what courses will be offered, board members said.

Further, Board Member Jim Martin said, the lack of COVID-19 vaccine access to younger children may change after families have already been asked to commit to a year of Virtual Academy.

“A year is a really long commitment,” Martin said, asking the district reconsider its commitment request to a semester.

Board member Christine Kushner said she’d like to hear more discussion of what in-person learning will be like next fall, which could also help parents decide how to enroll their children next year.

The district only plans to offer Virtual Academy, so far, to students in 4th through 12th grades.

Cook said research shows virtual learning is not the best option for younger children, who miss out on social aspects of school and the academic and developmental supports more easily accessed at school.

But the district is still considering expanding Virtual Academy to students in the 3rd grade or below.

“That’s a decision point for us in the days and weeks ahead,” he told the board.

Because students would remain with their current schools when they sign up for Virtual Academy, like this yea, school calendars wouldn’t change for those students, except for multi-track, year-round schools. Those schools would be assigned a district-wide track to follow.

The district will have additional centralized support for instructional delivery and students experience. Canvas, the learning management system, and Google are working together on improvements to the Virtual Academy, as well.

Virtual Academy teachers, families and students will have learning opportunities on using Canvas.

Monday, Aug. 23 marks the first day of school for traditional calendars -- almost 18 months since the start of the pandemic.

Even as vaccination numbers soar and cases slowly decrease, many families are wondering what, if any, virtual options will be available. According to a plan posted online, the district is proposing a virtual option for grades 4-12 but is still deciding if learning from home will be feasible for grades K-3.

Wake Schools plans for a Virtual Academy option next year

If parents decide to enroll their children in a virtual learning plan, they will need to commit to an entire year and decide in April, according to the proposed plan.

"We are constantly responding and evolving to the changing conditions and environment," explained school board member Keith Sutton. "We're just trying to do our best to be as responsive as we can and do that as quickly as we can but at the same time be very deliberate and intentional in our thinking and planning."

An open house for parents previewing options for 2021-2022 is slated for later this month.

Over the next week, middle and high school students not enrolled in Virtual Academy will return to school full-time for the first time since March.

The upcoming return to classroom schedule for the county is as follows:

Under Plan A masks are required, but maintaining 6 feet of social distancing is not.

Starting on Wednesday, Wake County schools will no long conduct on-site COVID-19 health screenings, the district announced Tuesday.

Instead, the district will place signs up on campuses encouraging people who are sick to go home. People will also be reminded to stay home if they show signs of illness at events, during daily announcements and via principals’ messages families.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ latest StrongSchoolsNC Toolkit no longer requires on-site screenings and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has never recommended them.

“While the goal of our previous screening program was also to keep those infected from being on campus, out data and the guidance from health officials showed the practice could be improved,” the district’s announcement reads.

The district has updated its list of symptoms that should keep a student or employee home. Those symptoms are now a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, sore throat, new cough, new difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, new loss of taste or smell, diarrhea or vomiting, and new onset of a severe headache, the announcement reads. Household members of people experiencing symptoms but who haven’t been diagnosed with COVID-19 no longer have to stay home, although students must still quarantine if they live with has been diagnosed with the disease.