State Board of Education Vision:Every public school student in North Carolina will be empowered to accept academic challenges, prepared to pursue their chosen path after graduating high school, and encouraged to become lifelong learners with the capacity to engage in a globally-collaborative society.
State Board of Education Mission:The mission of the North Carolina State Board of Education is to use its constitutional authority to guard and maintain the right of a sound, basic education for every child in North Carolina Public Schools.
Today, the budget (HB 259) became law without the Governor’s signature. The budget includes more than $600 million additional dollars for public education, totaling almost $13.5 billion for North Carolina’s K-12 public school system. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt issued the following statement in response:
“As a former educator, I’ve been vocal that North Carolina’s teachers deserve a raise, and I’m disappointed that we did not see the double digit pay increase for educators that we hoped for in this Conference budget. Salaries in other professions have kept pace with inflation, however that is not the case with education.
“While salary is a key component to addressing the teaching pipeline challenges in our state, I’m optimistic that the legislature’s first-ever direct investment of almost $13 million into the advanced teaching roles initiative will strengthen our pipeline by extending the reach of excellent classroom teachers while laying the foundation for higher pay and better supports for teachers, which will produce better student outcomes. In addition, the General Assembly earmarked millions of dollars for school support staff, such as nurses, school psychologists and social workers to address student health and mental health concerns, as well as the autonomy for districts to decide how to use the funding to best benefit their students and schools.
“I was thrilled to see another $70 million provided to our agency’s Center for Safer Schools for the dissemination of safety grants and for recurring funding to continue providing the Say Something Anonymous reporting app as a free resource to schools and students. I know from communicating with parents regularly that school safety and student mental health is top of mind to them.
“Creating a budget is never a straightforward process, and we are thankful for the certainty that comes with finally having a budget in hand. However, there are still a number of legislative priorities for North Carolina’s public schools that were not addressed in the Conference budget, so I’m looking forward to the short session where we can continue to change the way we hold schools accountable and how we compensate teachers.”
Key K-12 Education Highlights in the Budget:
More than $250 million for school construction costs
$2 million for Career Technical Education
Millions more investment into early literacy efforts
$30 million for Teacher Supplement Assistance
Funding for “TA to Teachers” is available for the first time to the entire state
State will fully cover the cost of the Reduced Priced Meal co-pays for families who qualify
NC DPI Press Release| Oct. 2, 2023: Protect Our Students Act Prioritizes Student Safety Against Sexual Misconduct - Educators convicted of sexual misconduct against students will now face harsher penalties under new legislation approved by the General Assembly. The “Protect Our Students Act,” House Bill 142, will also help students be better equipped to understand appropriate teacher-student relationships.
WRAL•NEWS Laura Leslie | Oct. 1, 2023:New state budget takes aim at hunger in schools - North Carolina's new budget includes several provisions aimed at making free meals more accessible to students in schools across the state. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, gives federal funding to qualifying schools to offer free breakfast and lunch for all students. The budget provides $6.3 million for the 2024-25 school year as an incentive for more schools to sign up for the CEP program. The money will be available to help cover the outstanding cost, making it more financially feasible for some.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt likes to talk about principals as a policy lever. Most policy reforms center on teachers and instruction — but school building leadership, she says while referencing a Wallace Foundation report, is effective because it touches both. But using principal leadership as a lever for downstream change has been hard amid elevated stress, burnout, and a leaky pipeline of qualified candidates in some parts of the state. That doesn’t mean great leaders aren’t out there, state leaders say, or that North Carolina can’t invest in growing great leaders statewide.
That’s why more than 200 new principals gathered in a conference space last week for the first meeting of the Early Career Principals Academy, a professional learning program intended to grow the leadership skills of principals in their first three years on the job.
“You all are the spark in your school,” Truitt told the gathering. “For those of you who are new, it’s gonna be hard. But I promise you it is well worth it. You are changing lives.”
This inaugural cohort of the ECPA will help design the program, which is just the latest in a line of partnerships between the education system and principal associations.
In 2015, the state established the Transforming Principal Preparation program (TP3). It was intended to create more and better principals at a time when there weren’t enough strong candidates to fill the needs. That initiative, now called the Principal Fellows program, took teachers with leadership aspirations and gave them professional development and tools to enter assistant principalships. The idea was to create a pipeline for future principals. About 200 members were inducted in the first cohort, but fewer than 30 made it to the principalship.
In response, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) partnered with NCPAPA last year to establish the AP Accelerator. That program offers professional development and coaching to select assistant principals, nominated by their superintendents, to help them enhance their skills and become principals.
The ECPA was created through a partnership among DPI, NCPAPA, the N.C. Alliance for School Leadership Development, and the Belk Foundation. The ECPA curriculum will align with North Carolina and national principal performance standards and competencies while also fostering a network culture.
BEST NC is pleased to announce the update of its Per Pupil Expenditure (PPE) Data Explorer and landing page, designed to facilitate the understanding and exploration of North Carolina’s school-level spending data and its relationship to other key education indicators. The updated tool features school-level and district-level expenditure data from the 2018-19 through 2021-22 school years, including both traditional public schools and charter schools.
For more information about the PPE Tool, including important trends derived from the data, please see our blog accompanying this tool’s release.
NC STEM Center - The NC STEM Center is a Web Portal for All Things Related to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education in North Carolina.
