BY KARISSA MILLER

The Iredell-Statesville Schools Board of Education met Monday morning at Unity Center to receive updates on performance data as well as challenges the district is facing.

I-SS Superintendent Jeff James said that student performance data suggests that Iredell County taxpayers are getting a solid return on their investment in public education.

“We are one of the lowest-funded districts in the state. The state will tell you that we have the ability to raise (local) taxes and we don’t,” James said, noting that Iredell ranks 98th out of 100 counties in terms of state funding.

“Despite this, I-SS is performing in line with the state and exceeding it in standard metrics and alternative metrics of success,” he explained.  

For the 2023-2024 school year, I-SS:

• Had a district graduation rate of 86.5 percent, which is slightly lower than the state average of 86.9 percent.
• Reported a five-year cohort graduation rate of 90.1 percent. This five-year rate includes second-year seniors from the early colleges.
• Showed gains in End-of-Grade tests in fifth grade reading from 49.3-percent proficiency in 2022-2023 to 53.7-percent proficiency in 2023-2024.
• Showed gains in fifth-grade math, with 61.8 percent proficiency, up from 57.8 percent the previous year.

The school budget is made up of state, federal and local dollars. There are also special technical grants and Title I school funds that are assigned to a particular school or expenditure. 

Rising costs and the loss of Covid-era federal stimulus funds forced the district to ask the Iredell County Board of Commissioners for more funding last year, leading to a 14 percent budget increase request over the previous year’s budget.

However, the district only received a 3 percent increase in their budget.

James said that the funding “formula” on the local level has improved for the school system, but the problem is that Iredell is considered a “wealthy county.” This means county commissioners have the ability to raise significant revenues through local property taxes to fund the local school budget or pay for building schools.

However, commissioners continue to keep the tax rate low compared to neighboring counties, which means that the local budget for funding the school system receives a gradual, rather than significant increase.

School board member Mike Kubiniec asked James what his recommendation was for the action the school board should take.

The superintendent said he wants the board to “advocate for funding.”

Teacher Pay

The next topic James addressed was teacher pay.

Teachers are paid less than their college-educated peers and are licensed professionals, James said.

According to James, the average teacher base pay for I-SS is $41,000.

The livable wages for two adult teachers at $41,000, he said, means that you are living in poverty.

According to Educational Leadership professor at UNC and education consultant Jim Watson, there is a real disparity and gap between some two-year careers and teacher pay. For example, he said that a CT technician can start out making close to $56,000 a year and a teacher’s starting pay is $41,000 a year.

“Having a livable wage — it’s not a luxury to want a car. It’s not a luxury to want a home. It’s not a luxury to want to go on vacation,” Watson said.

North Carolina ranked 41st in the nation for average teacher pay for the 2023-2024 school year, according to the National Education Association (NEA). 

“We are in trouble keeping qualified teachers in classrooms. Not just us, but charters, private schools and elsewhere,” James said.

Teacher Recruitment

Some I-SS classrooms are staffed with substitutes rather than permanent licensed teachers due to a rise in vacant teaching positions.

I-SS Deputy Superintendent Billie Berry mentioned that his daughter is in an I-SS classroom that has a permanent substitute.

James said that 60 to 65 substitutes are working full time for the district.

“It’s a train wreck,” he said, “I’m concerned about what’s about to happen in public education.”

Teacher vacancies are a nationwide problem because fewer students are going into the profession, and some teachers are nearing retirement age and leaving.

If you go into a classroom and take a poll of who wants to be a teacher, one or two students will raise their hands, James said.

“Nobody wants to teach. We can’t get people to do it even with a grant to pay for them to get their degree,” Education consultant and Assistant professor of Mathematics Education at UNC-Charlotte Travis Weiland said.

Weiland said that some colleges have seen dips in enrollment in education classes, and this has brought up discussion on some college campuses about whether to stop offering certain programs.

It has become increasingly difficult to find qualified teachers to teach math, science and exceptional children.

To address the teacher shortage, districts have been trying to recruit teachers from neighboring districts and states.

Increasing the local supplement

The board asked what could be done to recruit teachers to the district. School officials said that increasing the teacher supplement could help.

A supplement, a competitive teacher incentive, is a tool that can be used to attract teachers to a particular district. I-SS’s supplement is currently 10.3 percent.

Supplements are funded from the local budget, not the state budget.

According to the outside findings for I-SS, the district would need to boost its supplement to around 12 percent to recruit teachers from elsewhere. This would allow the district to be more competitive with Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, officials stated.

Other Takeaways

Other key takeaways that James shared included:

• The current 80/20 Accountability model does more to identify poverty than grading schools. The district would like to see it revised to a 50/50 model.
• Statistical comparisons to other districts are impossible due to numerous variables. There is room for improvement, but based on current funding, it will be almost impossible to close gaps.
• Teacher quality has a direct impact on math scores particularly.

The school board will continue to discuss these topics in greater detail when they begin budget planning, but no action was voted on or taken during the meeting.