Wayne County Public Schools calls out General Assembly
By Joey Pitchford
Published in News on September 7, 2017 5:50 AM
Wayne County Public Schools Superintendent Michael Dunsmore said that the General Assembly-mandated class size reductions slated to take effect next school year do not put the best interests of students first.
The comment came during a meeting of the Wayne County Board of Education student assignment committee Wednesday afternoon amid a discussion between district leadership and committee members about redistricting.
The mandate makes the redistricting process, already underway, substantially more complicated.
"I don't think they're looking out for what's best for the children," Dunsmore said. "They're doing it from a fiscal and political standpoint."
Class size reductions, which began this year and will kick in fully in the 2018-19 school year, have a taxing effect on a school district already struggling with how to effectively use classroom space, Dunsmore said. By limiting class sizes in grades K-3 without providing funds for more classrooms or teachers, the General Assembly has put WCPS and districts across the state in the difficult position of having to add dozens of new rooms and teachers without paying for them.
The formal purpose of Wednesday's committee meeting was to examine how the district will calculate school capacity for the rest of the redistricting process, a figure which district officials need for essentially every step in the process going forward. Committee members were tasked with deciding between two calculation methods -- the N.C. Department of Public Instruction method and the Evergreen Solutions method -- to set capacity numbers to work from going forward.
Capacity numbers from NCDPI represent the absolute maximum capacity a school has, because they are based solely on class sizes. The Evergreen method, on the other hand, takes a percentage of that maximum capacity -- 92 percent in elementary schools and 84 percent in middle and high schools -- to determine a recommended maximum capacity.
Committee chairman Rick Pridgen said that the more conservative Evergreen method was the right way to go, given uncertainty about more potential class size reductions from the General Assembly.
"I'll be honest, I'm worried that they'll throw [grades] four and five on us next year, and we'll be right back where we started" he said.
That fear -- shared by Dunsmore and other committee members -- stems from how districts have responded to the initial reductions. In order to preserve art, music and physical education classrooms, districts like WCPS have increased class sizes in fourth and fifth grade, where there are no such size requirements. Dunsmore said he expects that the General Assembly will close that "loophole" soon, leaving districts with one less way to preserve their services.
The committee agreed that the Evergreen model would be the best way to go, as it offered more space for contingency planning. It deviated from the model, however, by including mobile units in a school's capacity. The Evergreen model suggests not using those units, as they are meant to be temporary, but the committee members agreed that the units already in place would likely be there for years to come and should be factored into the school's capacity.
Amid the focus on facility usage and enrollment numbers, board member Raymond Smith Jr. cautioned the committee and district administrators not to lose sight of the reason they were all there.
"Let us not forget that the ultimate goal here is the overall improvement of our schools performances," he said. "If we lose sight of that, as a subcommittee or as a school board, we are wasting the public's time and our energy."
Smith said that the district must also focus on making the best possible use of the space it already has, reiterating a point he made when he voted against adding six mobile units to Tommy's Road Elementary in July. The district has several buildings, such as School Street Early Learning Center and Wayne Academy, which are not being used as full schools.
Smith also said that the hard cap on classroom sizes would require the district to be strict with its transfer and reassignment practices. When a school hits capacity, he said, the board and school administrators will need to "have the guts" to reassign students to open schools and provide them transportation, even if parents do not want their children moved.
The committee will bring its recommendation to the full board at the board's Sept. 11 meeting.