January 2008

School Board Recognition Month

NCSBA recognizes January as School Board Recognition Month. This is the time when you can show the community and media the importance of your work for public schools. Please work with your Public Information Officer to refine these ideas and develop your own.

Visit Schools!

• Eat lunch at a different schools.
• Attend school functions as a board.
• Invite school personnel to board meetings.

Speak at various organizations!

• Visit churches and community groups and give presentations about your board and school system. Encourage their attendance at board meetings.

Host a lunch with County Commissioners and Business Leaders!

• Listen to their ideas for the school system.
• Give presentations about how businesses can help schools and the board’s objectives for public education.

Sponsor a writing contest!

• Themes include: What is a school board? or What should a school board do?
• Ask local business leaders to judge the contest.
• Recognize the winners at a school board meeting, and invite the media!

Get advertisements in the newspapers!

• Design advertisements to publish in the local paper.
• Include a picture of your board members.

Spotlight students!

• Ask teachers and community leaders to nominate an outstanding student to be recognized each month by your board.
• Include a winner from all schools during the year.
• At the end of the year, host a dinner to honor all of the winners.

Host a press luncheon!

• Invite all local media to attend.
• During the luncheon give a presentation explaining the work your board does for public education and what it hopes to accomplish.
• Encourage the media to interact more informally with local board members to develop a congenial relationship.

Get on Public Access Television!

• Contact your local public access station and schedule a time for your board.
• Use a call-in format and give a presentation about your work for public education.

Millions in Civil Penalties Will Go to N.C. Schools

A Superior Court judge indicated that he will make the state pay public schools an estimated $700 million in revenue collected from civil penalties over part of a 5-year period.

The exact amount school systems will receive is still unclear, however. About $768 million was collected from January 1996 to July 2005, the period in which the suit's plaintiffs say the state illegally withheld money.

Judge Howard Manning decided money collected from September 1997 to July 2005 from tax penalties, parking tickets at state universities, vehicle fines and other sources should go to the state's Civil Fines and Forfeitures Fund, which would then allocate the money to the state's school districts for technology.

Manning's decision comes after the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that schools are entitled to the money. NCSBA and school boards from six counties filed the suit in 1998.

Manning said he isn't sure whether only the six districts that sued are entitled to fines collected between Jan. 1, 1996, and Sept. 1, 1997, the period prior to the state's forfeiture fund. Also to be finalized is how much of the $768 million will be taken out for collection fees by the state agencies. State officials estimated that they would need $21 million, which would bring the payout to about $747 million.

NC State Board of Education Commission on Testing and Accountability

The Blue Ribbon Commission on Testing and Accountability, created by the State Board of Education, agreed to recommend the elimination of the fourth-, seventh-, and tenth-grade writing tests and eighth-grade computer skills test.

In addition, the Commission recommended that the number of end-of-course exams be cut from ten to five and no longer wants to count physics, physical science, chemistry, Algebra II and geometry. The Commission report will be presented to the State Board in January, when they will decide whether or not to adopt the recommendations.

December State Board of Education Meeting 

The State Board of Education (SBE) discussed LFI 4- Enrollment Increase Requests Above 10% and Charter School Grade Changes  and LFI 5- Renewal Recommendations for Charter Schools with Charters Expiring June 2008.

Enrollment increase requests that exceed 10 percent require SBE approval. The Leadership for Innovation Committee of the SBE explored the requests school by school. Concerns were raised that many of the schools requesting an increase in enrollment showed significant decreases in academic proficiency. As a result, the discussion surrounding the requests will continue next month.

Though the impact statements from various superintendents were included in the materials, more attention is paid to the school test results than the documented consequences to the individual LEAs.

Update on Development and Piloting of New Evaluation Instruments for Teachers and School Executives

The SBE received an update on the progress of the School Executive and Teacher Evaluation instruments. The School Executive Evaluation has completed the pilot testing period. The instrument will be presented to the SBE in March and request approval in April. If approved, the instrument would be rolled out statewide during the first three weeks of May with implementation during the 2008-2009 school year.

The Teacher Evaluation pilot test will take place between January 2 and February 18, 2008. If approved, the roll out would start with a 20 percent sample of schools during the 2008-2009 school year, half of the remaining schools during 2009-2010, and statewide implementation during the 2010-2011 school year.

2006-2007 School Crime and Violence Report Released

The SBE received the Annual Report on School Crime and Violence. Schools are to self-report incidents in 17 categories, including bomb threats, sexual assaults, possession of alcoholic beverages, and assaults resulting in serious injury.

The new report shows that the number of reported acts of crime and violence in the 2006-07 school year were 11,013, up 54 from the prior year. This represented a 0.5 percent increase from 2005-2006.  Statewide, the rate of crime and violent incidents reported per every 1,000 students dropped from 7.9 to 7.77 because of an overall increase in the state's public school enrollment.  In addition, no schools were designated as persistently dangerous in 2006-2007.

The SBE also

• Approved GCS 1 - Changes to the 2006-07 LEA Improvement Status Report
• Approved GCS 5 - Revision of North Carolina English Language Development Standard Course of Study, K-12
• Approved TCS 1 - Reaching One's Potential for Excellence (ROPE) Scholars Program
• Approved TCP 1 - Revision of Licensure Policy to Facilitate the Licensing of Administrators and Instructional Support Personnel as Teachers
• Approved TCP 2 - Recommendations from the Advisory Board on Requests for Exception from Teacher Licensing Requirements
• Approved LFI 1 - 2005-06 LEA Technology Plan Monitoring Visits

North Carolina School Boards Association
Mailing: PO Box 97877, Raleigh, NC 27624-7877
Street: 7208 Falls of Neuse Road, Raleigh, NC 27615
Phone: 919.841.4040  Fax: 919.841.4020