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McGrady commits to sponsor rollback of costly class size law

State Rep. Chuck McGrady vowed to lead the charge in the state House to roll back a K-3 class size law that local school leaders say will cost the county $3.5 million and potentially eliminate music, art and P.E. or force bigger classes in higher grades.

 

McGrady, who showed up at the Board of Commissioners budget workshop on Tuesday, said he will file a bill that would modify the requirement in a way that local school districts have described as doable and affordable.
Henderson County School Board members vowed in a Jan. 9 meeting to step up appeals to state legislators to retreat from a class-size mandate that would cost the school system $3½ million next school year and could force the elimination of programs like music, art and phys-ed or result in bigger classes in higher grades.Henderson County and other school systems across the state are already beginning budget planning for the fiscal year that starts July 1 and the 2017-18 academic year. When they ran the numbers on a law the Legislature enacted last summer on class sizes in grades K-3, they calcuated that the mandate would require elementary schools to hire 48 teachers by August.
“It will have a profound impact on the school system,” said Scott Rhodes, chief human resources officer for the county schools. “We want to make it clear. We favor smaller class sizes but we also have to talk about the ripple effect of decisions made through the General Assembly and what those may be.”
At a cost of $52,740 per teacher — a figure that includes benefits and payroll taxes — the school system would have to come up with $2,531,520. The schools would also have to add 21 mobile units to accommodate the new classes, at a cost of $966,000, for a total cost of $3.5 million.
“And all of that money the state is going to give us, right?” said School Board Chair Amy Lynn Holt.
Rhodes said no.
“Oh, I thought they would if they’re requiring this,” she said facetiously, aware that the state mandate had come with no funding.
The options for meeting the smaller class-size mandate, School Board members said, are worse. The schools could lay off art, P.E. and music teachers in the primary grades, cut middle and high school teachers, increase class sizes in grades 4-12 or devise some combination of those options.
School Boards across the state favor a compromise in the House that rolled back the class size requirement, allowing both higher average class sizes and maximum class sizes. That formula brings the total number of new teachers to 11, at a cost of $580,140.
“The parents in our school system need to be aware of the possible ramifications as we have been made aware so they can contact our representtives and maybe other representatives across the state,” said board member Rick Wood. “I don’t even want to think about having to do some of the things we’ve heard that we might have to do tonight. We need to be talking about adding to some of our programs, not taking away. I’m very concerned about it.”
Before the new mandate, the state allotted money at a ratio of 1:18 for kindergarten, 1:16 for first grade and 1:17 for grades 2 and 3 but allowed local schools to have larger average class sizes — by three students in kindergarten, five in the first grade and four in grades 2 and 3. School systems used the margin to fund other programs.
“That’s how we’re funding a lot of our P.E. and arts teachers is due to the fact that we can go to 24” as a maximum class size, Superintendent Bo Caldwell said.
If the law is not changed, school systems across the state will need to hire teachers quickly.
“We have a teacher shortage in North Carolina where we are struggling to be able to hire new teachers,” Rhodes said. In the past, hiring a kindergarten and first grade teachers has not been a problem. “Now it’s becoming one.”
Caldwell said he had gotten a positive response from state Sen. Chuck Edwards.
“He gets it. He understands,” Caldwell said. “I think the information we provided as far told, he certainly said he’d see what he could do.”
School administrators are appealing for quick action from the Legislature to roll back the requirement.
“You can’t change this in July,” Caldwell said. “We’ve got planning and we’ve got budgets.”