- Wake County Public School System
- Legislative Agenda
2024 Legislative Agenda
-
Support Increased Opportunities for Individual Student Success and Well-Being
- Fully fund the needs of students with disabilities by increasing and modernizing the funding mechanism beyond 1993 levels and instituting NCDPI's recommended tiered approach in order to provide all students necessary educational services.
- Permit local school calendar flexibility in order to align local school calendars to provide high school students with the opportunity to earn college credits, participate in vocational training, and complete exams before winter break.
- Continue the expansion of low and no-cost meal benefits for students in order to improve student outcomes and behavior in the classroom.
Support High Quality Classrooms and Workforce in Order to Promote Academic Achievement
- Prioritize public school dollars to fully fund public schools, not private school vouchers.
- Support expansion of WCPSS' local options for supplemental revenue for capital and facility needs.
- Reduce hiring and staffing mandates to allow local discretion for K-5 classroom sizes in order to manage teacher shortages and ensure the best learning environment for all students.
- Fully invest an additional $291 million in WCPSS in order to provide every student with a sound basic education.
-
Our Legislative Agenda highlights key areas that must be addressed in the current legislative session to help our children succeed.
The Wake County Board of Education supports the guiding principles of the NC School Boards Association's Legislative Agenda with a particular emphasis on the following:
High-Quality Workforce
-
We ask lawmakers to improve student outcomes by ensuring all student have high-quality educators and high-quality support staff in their schools.
Improve recruitment and retention by:
Providing competitive salaries and benefits for all employees, including advanced degree pay and retiree health coverage, and preventing salary compression by ensuring continuous step increases for all years, including veteran teachers.
WHY? Funding is needed to ease the current staffing shortage and slow the pace of staff attrition that plagues our schools and impedes the learning and growth of our children.
Fund full-time, permanent substitute teachers
WHY? Building substitutes ensure learning continuity for students by easing the burden of teachers who use their planning time to cover teacher vacancies, shortages, and absences.
Continued growth of the Teaching Fellows Program
WHY? The Teaching Fellows Program is a proven tactic to recruit new teachers to the profession. Expanding the program to more HBCUs creates pathways for teachers of color to enter teaching. Research shows that students of color with at least one teacher of color do better on tests and are less likely to have disciplinary issues.
Expansion of lateral entry opportunities
WHY? Allowing school districts more flexibility and innovation in alternative teacher licensing and certification can help manage staffing shortages.
Student Well-Being
-
We ask lawmakers to improve student outcomes by supporting programs that improve student disposition and well-being.
Increase investments in support personnel
WHY? Students burdened by a barrage of social, emotional, and mental health issues need support to access learning. We need to bring the state closer to the recommended ratios for school counselors, psychologists, social workers, and nurses to improve student well-being, support student behavior, and improve academic performance.
Increase School Safety Funding
WHY? We call for flexible funding to institute increased safety measures in schools and support school violence prevention efforts.
Support gun safety legislation
WHY? We call for lawmakers to pass a state statute requiring safe storage of firearms.
Student Outcomes
-
We ask lawmakers to improve student outcomes by filling the funding gaps to ensure all children can access learning.
Reform funding for Academically and Intellectually Gifted Students
WHY? Examining the formula for AIG staffing and funding ratios will allow all gifted students to be identified, have their gifts nurtured, and ultimately excel in their intellectual and academic pursuits.
Fund learning opportunities outside of the classroom
WHY? Students need additional instruction and support to recover from the interrupted learning of the pandemic. Flexible state funding for schools will provide summer learning and high dosage tutoring.
Fund broadband and technology support professionals
WHY? Effective use of technology leverages the teacher's capacity, expands the classroom's physical boundaries to the world, and engages students in ways that other instructional tools cannot.
Schools and families need funding to improve broadband infrastructure and connectivity. Schools need funding to improve the technician-to-device ratio to ensure students and staff are not interrupted in learning and teaching.
Governance and Accountability
-
We ask lawmakers to support legislation that provides public schools with effective governance to best serve students.
Grant NCDPI fast-track authority
WHY? Providing NCDPI with fast track authority to review and modify plans for Comprehensive Innovative High Schools when there is a crisis can prevent potential school closures and ensure more stability for students.
Improve K-12 accountability system
WHY? Modifying the state's calculation of school performance grades, such as changes recommended by NCDPI to include additional factors measuring growth, graduation rates, and career credentials, will help accurately measure student readiness, identify challenges, and provide more uniform comparison to other states that give more weight to growth and improvement.
