Union County Public Schools is the latest school district to make tough decisions in a particularly tight school budget season. The district announced last week it was eliminating 11 media coordinator positions, impacting how schools manage their libraries and sparking some backlash.
UCPS had said it was anticipating a $10 million drop in state funding. That’s tied, in part, to a decline in enrollment, which drives state allotments. The district’s chief finance officer, Shanna McLamb had told the school board last month that would require some right-sizing.
“We are going to need to make adjustments, with our enrollment dropping, we have got to make staffing level adjustments for the coming school year,” McLamb said.
After the board approved its $174 million local budget request May 5, the district confirmed it was changing its media coordinator model to a shared-school model, where media coordinators would serve school clusters instead of individual schools. That led to the elimination of 11 of 48 positions.
UCPS said affected employees would be assigned to new schools or offered new positions. Five of the positions were already vacant or soon-to-be vacant due to planned resignations.
“Due to the projected state-funding deficit, UCPS has adjusted staffing levels across multiple personnel categories and budgets to align with the projected state allotment,” UCPS said in a statement. “One category is the restructuring of the Media Coordinator model to right-size for enrollment, modernize the job description and better support the instructional needs of our schools and students.”
The announcement prompted discourse online.
Kaitlyn Sirico, a candidate for the UCPS Board of Education, said in a Facebook post she was “heartbroken” about the news.
“We are supposed to be No. 1 in the state, but how will we stay there if we aren’t prioritizing our kids' education at the most foundational levels?” she wrote. “How is this impacting the budget enough to be worth the loss?”
John Kirkpatrick, a school board member who’s running for the North Carolina House of Representatives, said in his own post that he didn't support the cuts but noted the issue didn’t exist in isolation, and pointed to broader concerns about how schools are funded.
“Our issue is that North Carolina still does not have a state budget,” he said. “Our issue is local leadership that continues to support systems and priorities that fail to protect public education. And when those with influence and resources refuse to invest in what truly matters, communities suffer. Schools suffer. Children suffer.”
