School districts prepare for disruptions as Senate refuses to ease class sizes

by Billy Ball, NC Policy Watch, April 20, 2017.

North Carolina’s largest public school system may be warning of “enormous disruptions” without speedy action from state lawmakers on a looming class size funding crisis, but key education leaders in Raleigh tell Policy Watch there’s little sign Republican lawmakers in the General Assembly will act soon.

“It doesn’t seem like there’s any movement planned,” says Sen. Floyd McKissick, a Durham Democrat who sits on the state Senate’s Rules and Operations Committee, a panel that includes some of the chamber’s most powerful lawmakers and sets the agenda for future committee talks.

McKissick said he met late last week with Sen. Bill Rabon, the eastern North Carolina Republican who chairs the committee, but GOP leaders remain reticent to make any commitments regarding a legislative fix to the funding controversy, despite stiff warnings from district chiefs that thousands of teachers’ jobs are in jeopardy.

“It obviously needs to be addressed and it needs to be addressed expeditiously,” said McKissick.

The latest alert came Tuesday from Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) Superintendent James Merrill, who offered several thorny options to Wake school board members for filling a projected $26 million budget gap caused by the state’s class size requirements.

Those options include student reassignments and, as expected, massive layoffs among arts, music and physical education teachers to make way for hundreds of new core subject teachers.

Another controversial option would pack K-3 students into classes with up to 40 students and two classroom teachers as WCPSS, like many districts across the state, struggles to balance the need for reduced class sizes with a lack of space.

“It’s at least a three-dimensional Gordian knot,” said Merrill.

One bipartisan-backed resolution to the class funding drama, House Bill 13, picked up unanimous approval from the state House in February, but today it’s mired in Rabon’s committee.

Committee members have been reluctant to make promises about pending legislation as state lawmakers work furiously to meet the legislature’s April 27 crossover deadline, the date by which bills must be approved by at least one full chamber to be considered further in the session.

Rabon’s office declined to provide any updates on the issue for Policy Watch Wednesday, despite repeated assertions from district leaders that time is growing short for school districts.

Merrill said Tuesday that Wake County has been “dragging its feet” in committing to any of its prospective options, all of which are sure to spur controversy in the community, as local officials await any sign of a direction from the state legislature.

“We will wait as long as we can,” Merrill added. “But we’re running out of time.”

http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2017/04/20/local-school-districts-prepare-enormous-disruptions-senate-refuses-ease-class-size-requirements/