As a new legislative session gets underway in the North Carolina General Assembly, the Cumberland County Board of Education has finalized its legislative priorities for the year.
This legislative agenda helps set the table for local advocacy efforts. Among the board’s priorities is a request to adjust a formula used by the state to determine allocations for teacher bonuses and supplemental pay in Cumberland County.
North Carolina teachers are paid on a salary schedule, which sets a base salary and increases based on years of experience. In 2016, the General Assembly approved state-funded programs around teacher bonuses and supplements that also increase some educators’ salaries.
Cumberland County’s board wants to have what’s known as the average daily membership, a metric of student enrollment, included in the formula.
“The current formula does not account for Average Daily Membership when calculating state-funded teacher supplements,” Associate Superintendent Lindsay A. Whitley said.
The current funding method “disproportionately affects larger, high-poverty districts such as Cumberland,” Whitley said. “This addition underscores the Board of Education’s commitment to improving student outcomes by recruiting and retaining premier professionals through competitive teacher supplements.”
Along with the adjustment request to the teacher supplement formula, the Cumberland County Board of Education also incorporated the North Carolina School Boards Association’s legislative agenda into its priorities. NCSBA is a nonprofit organization that advocates on behalf of local boards of education across the state.
The approved legislative agenda includes priorities that complement the needs of Cumberland County Schools, the school board stated. This includes local school calendars that allow flexibility to align with academic goals, revising school accountability models to include more equitable measures of student success and improving compensation to reduce the shortage of teachers.
Other priorities include increasing resources for special education programs to meet student needs, working for more funds to address critical facilities, expanding access to quality pre-kindergarten programs and supporting safety initiatives.
The local priorities also include more oversight and equitable access and use of resources when it comes to opportunity scholarships.
The Board of Education has scheduled a Legislative Breakfast at 9 a.m. Friday in the Tony Rand Center’s Multipurpose Room at Fayetteville Technical Community College. The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners and the local state delegation have been invited to talk about strengthening public education in the county.
