4 hours Ago
No heat ...
for our kids? Understandably exasperated, parents and community members pointed fingers in many directions: The school board, the county commissioners, principals, etc. But to place the blame on local decisionmakers is to assume that Wake County is the only district facing these issues, which is far from the truth. A few considerations: The 2020-21 Five-Year K-12 Facility Needs Report by the state Department of Public Instruction, which is based on survey responses from North Carolina’s 115 school districts, identified nearly $12.
8 billion in renovation needs across the state. Plumbing, HVAC and electrical needs account for almost 25% ($1,376,389,679) of all reported renovation needs. As schools are not immune to inflation, we can safely assume these figures underestimate the costs of needed renovations to make schools function appropriately for our kids.
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Greensboro News & Record Marisa Bryant Districts all over the state face similar issues. Several schools in Wilson County and Mecklenburg County had no heat last Monday and Tuesday. Page High School, Madison Elementary, Monticello Brown Summit and Jackson Middle in Guilford County all had remote learning days last week due to a lack of heat.
And remember back in August and September (and last August and September ...
and the August and September before that), when some of these same districts and others dealt with a lack of air conditioning in several buildings? Or some, like Alamance County, because of mold issues? As of August, about half of the HVAC tech positions remained open in Wake County Schools — a trend that has been going on for years in districts with growth-fueled construction, where the low pay of these positions cannot compete with what private companies pay. Also, when emergency repairs must be contracted out to private companies, that means even less money is available for routine maintenance, repairs and employee pay. In North Carolina the state is responsible for the majority of public school operational funding.
However, the burden of school construction costs typically falls on local school districts. This has been a challenge for districts statewide; large counties struggle due to rapid growth while smaller counties face budget constraints and a smaller tax base. All districts are dealing with increasing costs for school personnel, which increasingly falls to counties to fund as opposed to the state.
The N.C. County Commissioners Association delegates recently voted on legislative priorities for the upcoming session, naming school employee pay (and other recruitment and retention strategies) as their No.
1 issue and funding to assist counties that have limited resources with construction of critical facilities (including schools) as No. 5. Our last statewide bond that included money for public school facilities was in 1996, nearly 30 years ago.
This is not a Wake County- specific issue, nor is it new. That doesn’t make it any less unconscionable and it provides no comfort to kids trying to learn with chattering teeth or parents who have to leave work or worry about kids being home alone when school gets out early because of HVAC issues. Parents and taxpayers across the state: Our kids could have nice things.
Or at least very basic things like heat, food and teachers when they come to school each morning. My hunch is that there are a lot of legislators who truly do want to do the right thing and who understand that this issue will only get more expensive if they continue to put off the necessary investments. Let them hear from you.
They need to hear firsthand stories from parents and educators about your local school and how these closures have affected your families. Tell them that it is long past time to repair our schools, invest in our school systems’ workforces, and ensure that every child has the opportunity to learn in a safe and warm environment. Anything less is unacceptable.
Marisa Bryant is the senior consultant for strategic partnerships for the Public School Forum of North Carolina. Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly!.
