Dare County Schools

February 2010

Dare County Board of Education Chairman David Oaksmith has spent a lifetime serving his country and community. As a retired naval officer Oaksmith began a second career as a math teacher and department chair at Manteo High School. After retiring from teaching he has since served on the Board of Education for the past twelve years, all as Board Chair. He currently serves as the representative at-large. Oaksmith resides in Southern Shores with his wife, Judy.

It has been over a year since I last reported to you on the health of our Dare County School System.

On behalf of our Board of Education, I want to extend our congratulations to our teachers, our teacher assistants, our administrators, our support staff, our custodians, our maintenance personnel and our transportation department for the outstanding job they are doing. 2008-2009 was a banner year for Dare County students as they excelled in every area of scholastic performance. Under the capable leadership of our Superintendent of Schools, the Dare County school system was at the top or in the top five percent of school districts throughout the state in several of the most important areas of student results. Dare County Schools had the second lowest dropout rate, the highest graduation rate, and the second highest SAT participation rate and scores in the state. Our three high schools were ranked in Newsweek Magazine’s Top 1500 High Schools nationwide based on enrollment in Advanced Placement courses.  Overall, our students achieved excellent statewide results. Keep in mind that these results were obtained with a student body that is diversified: white, black, hispanic and with over thirty-six percent of students below the federal poverty level. Our students excelled, and our teachers are to be congratulated for doing a remarkable job.

Our facilities are second to none. Ten years ago we were plagued with overcrowded schools most of which, because of age and neglect, were in a state of disrepair. With great foresight, our county commissioners financed a major overhaul of our facilities including four new schools, five major renovations and one addition at a cost of approximately $150 million. This major construction project, supervised by our school system, was extremely successful, and we now have without exception the finest set of schools statewide.

We firmly believe that when you look at the entire picture - our school facilities, our athletic complexes, our teaching staff, our administrators, our maintenance personnel and our transportation department, that we have the best school system in the State of  North Carolina. We can all take great pride in our schools.

While our schools are doing well statewide we must be mindful that being at the top in North Carolina does not necessarily afford us bragging rights nationwide. North Carolina public schools are in the bottom half when judged academically against the rest of the nation. We still have lots of room for improvement and are working hard to be an outstanding system at the national level.

All of this costs money. Every study I have read, with very few exceptions, indicates that high performing school districts are to a great degree the result of a high level of funding. Dare County has been at or close to the top statewide in providing local per pupil funding, and our students perform accordingly.

There are many reasons why it costs more to educate students in Dare County than in other counties. As a result of our geography and the public’s desire to have small community schools, we have 11 separate schools serving 4800 students. We have three high schools serving a high school population of 1500. Many districts have only one high school for that number of students, and most have only two. Very few have three. High schools are the most expensive schools to operate. The state supports us based on the number of students we have, not on the number of schools we operate. Operating three separate high school campuses, while educationally successful,  is extremely expensive because it demands three sets of teachers, three administrative staffs, three athletic complexes, three air conditioning/heat plants, three chemistry labs, etc. The majority of the burden of these additional operating costs are funded by Dare County.

Small schools and relatively small class sizes require locally funded teachers. Our school population of 4800 students will provide us with 296 state funded teachers. We have over 389 teachers at our schools, which means the salaries of 93 teachers are funded by the county. We are ranked number 4 in 115 school districts statewide in our percentage of county funded teachers. Some districts provide no county funding for additional teachers.

We provide a host of county funded programs and county enhanced state funded programs in our schools that have significantly contributed to the outstanding performance of our students. These programs include, but are not limited to, the More at Four Program, AVID, the elementary foreign language program, summer Jump Start, high school summer school, Rebound Program, after-school and during the day intervention, strings program, English as a Second Language, After-School Enrichment Program and many others. These are solid programs that have proven their worth over time. The Board of Education appreciates the county’s level of funding which permits us to provide these outstanding programs.

Our high performing schools are a direct result of the high caliber of teachers and staff that we have been able to recruit to work in Dare County. The high cost of living in our area mandates above average salaries if we are to retain these high performing teachers. Teacher salaries are set by the state and are below the national average. Currently we are ranked number 4 statewide as a result of the locally funded supplements we provide to financially assist our first year teachers. We are hoping to increase our teacher supplements for our more experienced teachers who are ranked below the top 10 in supplements statewide.

We recruit top drawer educators to run our schools and compensate them accordingly. Our school performance reflects this leadership. All five elementary schools made high growth last year. Very few districts statewide with 5 or more elementary schools achieved that. We have a hard working central office staff who do a tremendous job behind the scenes. Each one of them has a full load of responsibilities. They work extremely hard and make a major contribution to the success of our schools.

Because we are identified as an extremely wealthy county, we do not receive the state or federal supplemental funding that is provided for low wealth districts. We are fortunate to receive a high level of local funding to operate our schools in Dare County, and we are getting a terrific “bang for our buck.” This carries over in many ways that supports our county’s success and growth.

Our school system has achieved a statewide reputation for educational excellence. This reputation serves to attract highly qualified professionals to our area who want their children to benefit from our schools. I am personally aware of medical personnel who chose employment at our local medical facilities over another area because of the opportunities their children would have in our schools. Good schools attract good people.

When I am out and about, I am repeatedly asked about the effect of our local economy on our student numbers. Despite the increase in local unemployment, our student population continues to grow at a number that is ahead of our demographic projections. We currently have twenty more students enrolled than we had at this time last year. I feel confident that this is a direct result of Dare County’s commitment to education and the performance of our school system.

All of the outstanding services that our school system provides require adequate funding. As a result of our ailing state economy our state funding (for this school year 2009-2010) was cut by $3 million. The majority of this amount was restored through federal stimulus funding. This one time infusion of federal dollars was designed to assist the state, and we are extremely grateful for that. The stimulus allowed us to rehire the teachers we had previously let go in June of last year. It also allowed us to retain several educational programs that we would have been forced to cut. There are currently no plans for a repeat federal stimulus package for 2010-2011.

For the last 10 years the Dare County Board of Commissioners and the Dare County Board of Education have adhered to a funding agreement which has provided for per pupil funding based on a formula which takes into account everything from insurance costs to the cost of living index. This method of per pupil funding has allowed the Board of Education to plan budgets more accurately and to enhance the programs in our schools. This school year, as a result of the county’s financial situation, Dare County Schools were cut $1 million from this year’s operating budget and $430,000 from the capital budget.

We are doing everything possible to absorb the $1 million cut from our operating budget without doing serious damage to our classrooms. Regrettably, we were forced to leave some teacher vacancies created by resignations unfilled. This has in some areas resulted in an increase in class size. We have eliminated administrative positions, reduced the central office staff, combined bus routes, cut back on student remediation funding, curtailed off-site training, reduced staff and school travel to a minimum, and have severely cut back on building and grounds maintenance. Service contracts have been cut or eliminated. We are adding grounds maintenance to the workload of our preventive maintenance team. Our staff has aggressively pursued efficiencies and cost-cutting measures in every area of operations. This Board remains committed wherever possible to preserving teaching positions and to funding our classrooms.

Your Board of Education is deeply concerned with respect to both State and County funding for the upcoming 2010-2011 school year.  We will continue to lobby at the State level as we did last year and will work with our State legislators to avoid cuts to our K-12 education system.

We are working with our county commissioners to restore our funding to the per pupil level as determined by the formula that was previously agreed upon. Ten years ago Dare County made education a top priority when it adopted the per pupil funding formula. Our student outcomes clearly demonstrate the wisdom of that decision. We do not believe that reducing funding for our K-12 educational system in Dare County is in the best interest of our students, our families or our communities. We must continue to make the education of our young people our highest priority. They are our future.

In closing, I want to urge each of you to visit your schools and see first hand the great work that is going on there.

Very Respectfully,

David E. Oaksmith, Jr., Chairman
Dare County Board of Education