The long delays in the state budget process are hurting teacher retention in rural districts like Halifax County, and it’s just one of the many funding challenges these districts are facing.
School districts across the state are feeling the strain of the legislature’s late budget, from stagnant teacher pay to an inability to fund new innovative programs. And the challenges are most acute in lower-wealth rural counties, where local budgets and property tax revenues aren’t big enough to fill the gaps.
WUNC News' Colin Campbell visited Halifax County, about 80 miles northeast of Raleigh and one of state's poorest counties, to speak with Halifax County Schools Superintendent Eric Cunningham about the funding challenges on the WUNC Politics Podcast.
This conversation has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
How has the delayed state budget impacted funding and operations in your school district?
"We're just left in limbo. What can we do with our current funding as it exists today? What are the new things that we need based on our test data and our student performance data? That's where we need that new money, so I can align all roads to student achievement. Being out there in limbo just keeps us not understanding what we can do, because I'm a risk taker, but I'm a conservative risk taker."
Are you seeing teachers driving up I-95 to Virginia looking for higher salaries? Are you losing great staff to other school districts that have the resources to have higher salaries?
"We are losing a lot of teachers to Virginia, because it appears that Virginia pays more. But we're also seeing our teachers migrate towards the Raleigh area, because our performance data is going up, so they're becoming much more attractive to higher performing districts.
"We took local tax dollars and we created supplements for all of our employees. That has helped us, but it has not kept pace with the other districts who can afford more. So we're in the game, but we're still on the bench."
Halifax County was one of the original counties included in the long-running Leandro lawsuit challenging whether school funding shortages would impact students' constitutional right to a "sound basic education." How has the changing legal landscape around this Leandro school funding case impacted your district?
"You have to look at places like Halifax County and say, 'how can we strengthen them,' because we add to the betterment of North Carolina. But we also recognize there are needs that are unique to places like Halifax that aren't being experienced in other places. Our children have a right to a sound basic education, just like everyone else, but that may require that we do things differently."
Give us an example of what what needs to happen differently in Halifax than in a school district that doesn't have some of the same characteristics.
"There's not enough time in the instructional day to address the deficits of our children. That means our kids need to stay in school longer and should be allowed to go to school earlier, because we need time with our children. You need structural changes to help our children learn throughout the day."
Listen to the full conversation with Cunningham — including how Halifax is using state funds to replace dilapidated school buildings — on the WUNC Politics Podcast.
