NEW HANOVER COUNTY — Parents and New Hanover County Schools staff members gathered for a superintendent-hosted town hall last week, though many people raised concerns on issues the district has no direct control over.
On Aug. 25, two days into the traditional school year, New Hanover County Schools Superintendent Chris Barnes hosted a forum for staff, followed by one for parents, to hear feedback and have district leadership respond to inquiries. Around 25 people attended each session.
The two groups had some distinctions — a chunk of the parent discussion was dedicated to screen time and technology use, while salaries was a major issue for the staff session. Both groups also raised similar issues over transportation, school funding, facilities, and arts education.
Barnes pointed out some limitations in addressing them, largely due to state-level funding decisions.
“I’ve tried not to do that game where I go and blame the state for what the county’s not doing and blame the county for what the state’s not doing because I really feel like our county has put significant investments behind the students — I really think that they do,” Barnes said. “The state, however, doesn’t view our allotment formulas as appropriate.”
Transportation
The most prescient issue for both cohorts was transportation, a common issue at the beginning of the year as families and staff get settled into new routines.
This year transport times to Laney High School, Trask Middle and Murrayville Elementary were extended due to a cut-through being out of service. A portion of Dove Field Drive collapsed due to last week’s heavy flooding, causing buses to redirect onto busy N. College Road to reach the campuses.
Though, as with past years, the district is struggling to find bus drivers. At the forum, Assistant Superintendent of Operations Rob Morgan said his bus driver staff was operating at 85% capacity without accounting for people who call out of work the day of.
Morgan explained it leaves the district scrambling to find drivers at the last minute, often pulling other staff from the transportation department to drive a bus. The constant switcheroo contributes to confusion over bus numbers, different drivers each trip and, sometimes, late or early arrivals prompting parent complaints.
After the meeting, the district confirmed it has 99 of 116 of its driver positions filled, though it is running 24 double runs in the morning and 30 in the afternoon.
Morgan revealed a large hurdle in the hiring process is not necessarily pay — NHCS offers $18.87 an hour — but rather the time it takes the DMV to administer road tests.
“We’ll have 10 candidates in line in November and on December 1, we’re down to three,” Morgan said. “And it’s because they’re getting dragged out so long that they take other jobs, or they don’t make the background check, or there’s any number of reasons.”
Barnes added he tried to pay for the district to have its own, dedicated instructor, but the DMV would not allow this.
Morgan said the district has raised the issue as high as the governor’s office twice, but never received a response.
A district spokesperson clarified the topic came up among others on two occasions with Gov. Josh Stein — around a year ago and in March this year.
“During both conversations, we expressed concerns about the challenges associated with relying on DMV testing capacity to move candidates through the licensing process in a timely manner,” district spokesperson Anita Baggie wrote in an email to Port City Daily. “The response from the Governor’s Office was supportive, although no immediate solutions were identified.”
Cindy Bliss, principal at Rachel Freeman School of Engineering, said she is still experiencing bus troubles unrelated to the start of the traditional year. Rachel Freeman’s first day of school was Aug. 6.
Bliss explained some of her students are continuing to miss school — contributing to the high absenteeism the district is trying to curb — because they don’t have bus passes, which are needed to board a district bus.
The district has set deadlines for requesting the passes with reminders throughout the summer; however, it receives an influx of new requests at the beginning of the school year.
Aside from the time needed to verify student information, sometimes new requests require the incorporation of additional routes, creating a backlog in issuing the passes.
Still, Bliss said she didn’t understand why it would take 10 days to issue a pass when Rachel Freeman is one of the only schools in session at the beginning of August. She noted communication is already a challenge for the families at her school, who also have to get their bus passes in two weeks before a majority of the district; they also tend to rely on their phones, rather than computers, for completing district paperwork.
Bliss said she thought the district was putting things in place that systemically work against her students
After the meeting, Baggie said Bliss’ concern is understandable.
“We recognize the importance of minimizing delays and continue to refine our procedures each year to improve service,” Baggie said. “When a stop is already established and eligibility can be verified, we make every effort to assign students as quickly as possible to help avoid interruptions to school attendance.”
Funding and facilities
Both the parent and staff cohort brought up issues related to the district budget.
Superintendent Barnes has been clear the district is operating at a subsistence level, even with millions more from the county commissioners this year despite the district’s declining enrollment. Still, some staff members came to the town hall to express their pay levels were preventing the hiring of experienced staff.
Though no teachers raised the issue, HVAC and cafeteria workers, plus occupational and physical therapists, said they are having a hard time hiring and retaining staff.
Barnes thought it might be time to undergo another salary study to ensure district staff’s pay was on par with surrounding districts and districts of the same size.
However, just because the study shows staff should be paid a certain amount doesn’t mean the district has the funding to pay it. The superintendent pointed out the district is limited by the state’s funding formula, which doles out money based on enrollment without, like other states have, weighted amounts for populations who need more support.
“I have 100 grand. Is it OT/PT? Is it HVAC? Is it cafeteria?” Barnes said. “That’s the problem … we have to do and make choices that are really difficult.”
He and school board member Pat Bradford said district leaders have been discussing changes to the state’s funding model with legislators, particularly eliminating the cap on special education funding.
The state currently limits this funding at 13% of the student enrollment, regardless if a district’s special education population exceeds 13% or whether a small group of students take up a large majority of resources, as is the case at NHCS. Barnes said the district spends more than a million dollars in support for 14 students. Even when the state money runs out, public schools are still obligated to accommodate the needs of special education students.
According to Bradford, the legislators they’ve spoken with are amenable to changing the special education funding model.
The state is also exploring a full transition to a weighted funding model; Barnes said the district was invited to a presentation on the matter. Barnes thought the state needed to put $4 billion more into education to “move the needle.”
Another example of the state funding model falling short comes with arts education. Art and music teachers are part of elective teacher allotments, which are doled out based on a certain number of students.
For example, if there was one art teacher per 500 students, schools with less than 500 students would not qualify for their own state-funded teacher. In this scenario, the district could fund the position at a small school using county dollars or share the teacher amongst multiple schools.
Austin Hinson, the band teacher at Williston Middle and New Hanover High schools, questioned the district’s long-term plan for the arts.
“In particular, I’m concerned about the orchestra programs in New Hanover County,” Hinson said. “There is a lot of noise around programs going away — and obviously I’m someone who splits a position right now, so I have those concerns myself for my band programs. But I want to know that we are in a county that can help support the arts.”
Barnes noted the orchestra positions are not funded by the state with “any stretch of the imagination” and thus, he had to trade in a supervisory position to pay for them in this year’s budget.
“I will tell you that I have no interest in closing out those positions,” Barnesa said. “I will also tell you right now, I don’t know how I’m going to fund them next year.”
Port City Daily asked the district about the orchestra program and arts funding in general but did not receive answers by press.
However, the district is conducting a review of its building footprint to potentially reduce the amount of overhead it has. This would likely reduce costs for maintaining the buildings and people needed to staff them.
Adjacent to the funding conversation, some parents and staff also expressed concerns over the district’s facilities. One parent brought up asbestos testing for old facilities, while others noted HVAC failures at schools, remedied by loud portable air units which are disruptive to class.
Barnes said the concerns demonstrated the importance of the bond. The district is proposing $320.5 million-worth of capital needs across the district in a bond referendum on this November’s ballot.
Screen time and tech questions
Coming off the state’s involvement in a landmark settlement with Meta over children’s use of its platforms, many parents worried about the amount of time their students spend using screens.
One parent questioned whether her child uses physical textbooks in class or computers. She wasn’t provided a finite answer. Superintendent Barnes informed the group the district is currently seeking funding for a study to find out how much time students spend with screens in the classroom.
“Just because the computer is being used as a part of a lesson doesn’t mean it’s the only thing that’s happening, but we wanted to drill down and find out exactly what that screen time looks like,” Barnes said.
According to the district, the study is still in its preliminary phase, though the district has already found a partner in The Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, a research arm of North Carolina State University’s College of Education.
In line with the state’s new guidance on purposeful screen use, the district’s goal is to establish a clear baseline of current technology use across schools in order to “assess alignment with guidance, identify gaps, and develop a practical framework for educators.”
At the meeting, Barnes said the district is seeking a grant for the effort; after the meeting, the district confirmed it will ask The Endowment to chip in. There is no cost estimate at this point.
In the meantime, Chief Academic Officer Robin Hamilton assured the town hall cohort that students still use physical texts, particularly novels. She also noted the curriculum has largely shifted to workbooks, where students can complete math problems, for example, in their book rather than copying problems onto a separate sheet of paper.
Hamilton explained reading material, whether online or in textbook form, are only part of classroom instruction.
“Say we’re looking at the Bill of Rights, the first 10 articles of the Constitution,” Barnes explained. “You may read them online, but then you’re spending time in class debating them, discussing them, writing your own Bill of Rights to add to it.”
Additionally, Barnes noted the district’s technology sustainability plan no longer calls for middle schoolers to be provided computers for assignments and to take home. While 1:1 devices are still deemed necessary for high schoolers, which particularly need them for AP and college courses, the removal from middle-school curriculum reduces the district’s technology costs and screen time for pre-teens.
Barnes was clear the district’s goal was not to go back to textbook-only learning, as it would be too expensive for the district to bear with their high replacement rates due to the wear-and-tear and updates.
However, one parent said they would like to have the ability to purchase books for their student, noting physical text was more conducive to comprehension.
A 2024 meta-analysis of 49 studies found students who read on paper consistently scored higher on comprehension tests than those who read the same material on screen. Additionally, an eye-tracking study found those reading print texts frequently re-read important details, while screen readers tend to skim.
There was also a question from one parent about the district’s use of AI, to which Assistant Superintendent of Technology and Digital Learning Dawn Brinson pointed to the district’s website for more information on its use. The district prohibits using the technology for cheating, along with meeting assistants and agentic AI. Brinson did note that the state requires AI literacy, though, so the district cannot rid itself of the technology completely.
Brinson also noted the district is considering making technology and AI use a topic in its Parent and Caregiver Academy.
[Ed. Note: A previous version of this article stated the district pulls teachers, TAs and other staff from their positions to drive buses when needed; after publication, the district clarified they do not pull these staff members, rather only employees from within the transportation department. PCD regrets the error.]
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