Schools may lose federal funding
By Joey Pitchford
Published in News on July 3, 2017 5:50 AM
Changes to the Wayne County Public Schools free and reduced lunch program coupled with potential cuts in President Donald Trump's budget could leave many Wayne County schools without thousands of federal dollars in the 2017-2018 school year.
Schools such as Spring Creek Elementary and Eastern Wayne Elementary stand to lose around $150,000 in federal Title I funding, which is designed to help schools with high rates of poverty. Every Title I school in Wayne County will lose some money, anywhere from $6,215 at Grantham Middle up to $156,512 at Spring Creek.
The changes come after the Wayne County Board of Education voted at a special called session June 20 to add nine schools to the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act's Community Eligibility Provision, a federal program which funds free lunches in high-poverty schools, while also removing all high schools from the same program.
Those nine schools, Spring Creek Middle, Greenwood Middle, Meadow Lane Elementary, Eastern Wayne Middle, Grantham Middle, Tommy's Road Elementary, Northeast Elementary, Rosewood Elementary and Grantham Elementary, all rose above the 40 percent poverty rate required to be eligible for the provision following Hurricane Matthew.
Being in the CEP program opens up a school to federal Title I low-wealth funding, which is distributed based on the school's poverty level multiplied by 1.6. If, after that multiplier, the school's poverty rate raises above a level set by the school district, they are eligible for Title I funding based on that percentage.
The actual pool of Title I money does not increase as more schools are added to it. That allotment is based on the total number of students below the poverty line in Wayne County.
"You could have 1,000 CEP schools or one CEP school," said Carol Artis, WCPS director of elementary education. "That does not affect your allotment at all."
The school system distributes Title I funds down to 68 percent poverty. With the 1.6 multiplier, however, nearly every CEP school in the district would qualify, stretching the funding pool.
For instance, Rosewood Elementary has a poverty rate of 59.2 percent, according to documents released by the school system. Under the CEP multiplier, its percentage would actually be 94.74 percent, rising above the threshold and thus legally requiring far more funding.
If the district had to use this method, funding would have to be unevenly distributed, taking away from higher-need schools. Under the CEP method, schools with nearly 100 percent poverty like North Drive Elementary and Carver Heights elementary would lose around $80,000, while lower-poverty schools like Tommy's Road and Rosewood Elementary would each gain around $100,000.
To avoid this, the board voted to use what is known as Direct Certification, which decides Title I allotments based on the number of students on food stamps at each school. This number is inevitably smaller than the overall poverty rate, which means some form of losses at every school no matter what.
However, the impact on the poorest schools would be substantially lessened. North Drive, for instance, is expected to lose $10,251 under the DC method, as opposed to the $87,482.80 it would have lost under the CEP method.
The hardest-hit schools would be in the middle. While low poverty schools are not part of the equation, and high-poverty schools still sit above the funding threshold, those relying on the multiplier to push them over the edge will see substantial losses.
Spring Creek Elementary, for instance, would have already lost $99,952 under the CEP method, despite being over the funding threshold. With the DC method, it falls just under the 68 percent threshold, and its losses increase to $156,512.
Ms. Artis said that difficult choices had to be made in order to make sure that low-wealth funding is preserved for the highest-poverty schools.
One of those choices included removing Wayne County high schools from the Title I funding pool entirely. Due to their higher student populations, high schools soak up a disproportionate amount of funding, Artis said. That funding is also more likely to be spent on equipment and technology than on teaching positions.
In order to help preserve teaching jobs in lower grades, where a student's educational foundation is built, the district prioritized keeping the funds centered in K-8.
Ms. Artis said that Title I funding is intended in spirit to be used to help disadvantaged students close the gap early on, even if the letter of the law allows the funds to be applied anywhere. She said that around three quarters of all Title I schools include K-8 students.
One school exiting the funding pool is Goldsboro High, a school with a poverty rate over 80 percent.
Ms. Artis said that Goldsboro High along with Dillard Middle, Carver Heights and Brogden Middle are considered "priority schools," which means the district gets a different funding stream to help them. That money will offset the losses in Title I funding that would otherwise be detrimental.
Included in the allotments are slashing cuts to federal education funding included in Trump's budget request.
"We have been informed by the federal government to anticipate a 15 percent cut, so in giving out allocations we had to go with that from the beginning," she said. "The temper of the federal government right now is a different direction with federal funds."
Had that cut not come down - or if it does not survive to the congressional budget - the school system would be in a better place.
"We may be wrong. It may play out a different way, and that's what we're hoping," Ms. Artis said. "But we're anticipating a 15 percent reduction, and that's significant. That's not paper and pencils, that's people."