Education

“I could choose to do anything else with $50.” But Anca Stefan, a high school English teacher in a Durham public school, says she’ll fork over the $50 next month to take a “personal day” and join hundreds of her local colleagues to promote school funding increases at the N.C. General Assembly.

This morning, the state Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the pivotal case of Silver, et al. v. Halifax County Board of Commissioners. At issue is plaintiffs' claim that the maintenance of three, racially segregated school districts in relatively small Halifax County has propped up a system of inequality that favors one predominantly white school district over two predominantly Black school districts.

When a politically-connected nonprofit takes over work in a languishing Robeson County elementary this year, they’ll do so amid questions about their experience and capacity for reaching at-risk children. But the concerns may go even deeper, a Policy Watch review has found.

When North Carolina’s top school board meets this week, it will consider the fate of an ethically knotty contract for the takeover of a struggling Robeson County elementary school.

The head of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools—North Carolina’s second-largest school system—says state lawmakers’ brewing talk of dividing large districts is “bad public policy.”

Tallulah Cloos, 18, sometimes ponders ideal hiding spots if an active shooter were ever to terrorize her Buncombe County high school. It’s not easy, she says. A.C. Reynolds High, located just southeast of Asheville, has a wide campus with an abundance of open spaces.

Last month, in response to the latest in a series of mass shootings in American schools, some lawmakers suggested arming North Carolina teachers. Last week, pollsters at Elon University released a poll in which they asked North Carolina teachers about the issue.

North Carolina’s public school system is one of the lowest funded in the nation when adjusted for cost of living, a K-12 researcher told members of a key state school panel Tuesday. It was just one of many data points hammered home, as school experts and administrators warned a key K-12 task force convened by Gov. Roy Cooper of troubling funding patterns, teacher shortages and yawning local spending gaps in North Carolina.

Students, faculty and staff at UNC continue protest the Chapel Hill campus’ Confederate monument, “Silent Sam.” The North Carolina Historical Commission continues to grapple with whether it can legally remove the statue.

When North Carolina lawmakers approved what one Republican described as a “historic” investment in reducing elementary class sizes this week, it was viewed by many as a godsend for school districts that feared thousands of teaching jobs were at stake.

An omnibus bill alleviating some of the headaches associated with North Carolina’s class size crisis easily passed the state House by a 104-12 margin Tuesday, despite continuing opposition from top Democrats on its controversial Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Board of Elections provisions.

When members of the North Carolina Senate passed a four-year plan for partially alleviating the state’s class size crisis Friday, some would say it was a long time coming. Local school districts and public school advocates have long warned that a legislative order to chop K-3 class sizes would have deleterious effects on the state’s classrooms, demanding a massive investment in classroom space and possibly crowding out “enhancement” teachers...

When Appalachian State University opens its Academy at Middle Fork to 300 chosen elementary students in Winston-Salem this August, by some accounts, it’ll be one of several pioneering, university-led efforts bound to turn around test scores for lagging North Carolina children in the coming years.

North Carolina’s controversial Innovative School District needs more time to tap a private operator that’s expected to take over a struggling Robeson County elementary this year.

The benefits of a comprehensive overhaul for North Carolina’s school funding system are “at best, ambiguous,” says a new report from the state’s top lobbying outfit for public school administrators.

273 - Number of positions at the 17 University of North Carolina system schools that have responsibilities related to Equal Opportunity, Diversity and Inclusion (EO and D&I) work, according to a new report delivered to the UNC Board of Governors last week. The board is now considering whether to centralize this work rather than have it done at individual institutions.