The House and Senate have agreed on a final state budget. The budget includes pay raises for teachers and principals, additional NC Pre-K funding, but no funding to address the class size mandate scheduled to take effect next year. Budget Highlights Teacher Pay: The average State-funded increase for teacher pay will be 3.3% in FY18 and 9.6% in FY19 when compared to FY17. To pay for these increases, there is a $101.7 million funding increase in FY18 and $372.6 million increase in FY19. Teacher Bonuses:
$14.9 million in FY19 for third grade reading performance bonuses, AP and IB bonuses and career and technical education bonuses;
$25.3 million to support a math performance bonus program for teachers in grades 4 through 8 and a reading bonus program for teachers in grades 4 and 5;
$5 million in non-recurring funding in FY18 and FY19 for bonuses for all teachers with at least 25 years of experience.
Principal and Assistant Principal Pay: The budget creates a new Principal Salary schedule based on a school’s average daily membership and school growth performance. The average percent increase is hard to predict due to the new schedule, but based on Fiscal Research modeling the State-funded average salary will increase by 8.6%. These salary increases will be funded by a $35.4 million increase in FY18 and $40.6 million increase in FY19. In addition, the new bonus program equates to an additional average increase of 4% of principal pay. NC Pre-K: The budget includes $9 million in NC Pre-K funding in FY18 and $18.3 million in FY19. The increased funding will serve an estimated additional 1,725 children in FY18 and 3,525 children in FY19. The current waiting list is about 4,700 children. Textbooks: The final budget includes $11.285 million in non-recurring funding in FY18 for textbooks and digital materials, but no additional funding for FY19. Drivers Education: The final budget does not include the Senate’s proposed “stipend” for drivers education. Children with Disabilities: The final budget includes $6.32 million in recurring funding to increase the funding cap for students with disabilities allotment from 12.5% to 12.75%. A school district can now receive funds for each child identified with disabilities, up to 12.75% of the districts ADM. School Vouchers: The final budget includes $45M in FY18 and $55M in FY19 for opportunity scholarships and creates a task force to study evaluating learning gains and losses by students receiving opportunity scholarships. Education Savings Accounts: The final budget includes $450K and $3 million for education savings accounts in FY18 and FY19 respectively. Children with disabilities would be eligible for scholarship grants for education related expenses, including tuition for non-public schools. Class Size: The final budget did not include any additional funding to support the scheduled class-size reduction for the 2018-19 school-year. While neither the House nor the Senate included such funding in their respective proposals, both chambers included provisions to address the class-size debate in other ways, but neither were included in the final budget. The Senate proposal would have created a separate K-5 teacher allotment and would have imposed restrictions on the ability of LEAs to shift funding, while the House budget included a requirement for superintendents to notify legislators of capacity limitations that would prevent them from meeting class-size requirements.
ESSA Compliance / School Grades: To comply with the federal ESSA Act, legislators made several adjustments to the school performance grading scale, including:
Separate grades for certain subgroups of students, including:
Economically disadvantaged students;
Students from major racial and ethnic groups;
Children with disabilities;
English learners;
A requirement to report on the data for each subgroups along with achievement gaps;
The incorporation of English language proficiency as a measure;
A requirement for the State Board of Education and DPI to provide user-friendly access to the public on the annual report cards issued for LEAs and individual schools;
The redefinition of academic and school quality and student success indicators (see page 69 and 70 of the budget bill).
HB149, Students with Dyslexia and Dyscalculia This bill would require the State Board of Education to develop tools to ensure students with dyslexia and dyscalculia are identified prior to the start of the next school year. The bill passed the Senate Education Committee last week and has been referred to the Senate Rules Committee. The bill previously passed the House in April. Support PTA's Advocacy Efforts Joining PTA is a great way to work together to advocate for important issues in public education and support NCPTA’s advocacy efforts.
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