CHARLOTTE, NC — Too many students, not enough teachers and not enough money in the budget to close that gap.
That’s the situation for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools with early enrollment numbers showing huge growth; far above what the state projected. The superintendent is preparing the board for tough times.
The day started with the official ribbon cutting at Palisades Park Elementary, one of two new schools opened in CMS this year. But Superintendent Heath Morrison was also talking about a major crisis for CMS; a larger than expected influx of new students, without adequate funding.
“That could have a devastating affect on our budgets,” said the Superintendent. “Try to think about hiring more teachers at this time of year. It’s really, really challenging.”
In years past, growth for the largest school districts was assumed, and funded automatically. That’s not the case anymore. The state legislature has changed that practice. It’s prioritized now, but not guaranteed.
That could be devastating. The state projected 754 new students for CMS. The enrollment count for the first 20 days shows a gap of more than 3,200 students and 12 million dollars.
“You ought to have some good confidence that you can start to budget off of that number, hire off of that number, allocate the schools off of that number,” said Dr. Morrison. “Except we began to question even in April what was the mechanism that the Department of Public Instruction was going to account for the new charters coming to Mecklenburg County.”
The state projected big growth for charter schools in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. CMS got the revised growth numbers less than two weeks before school started, putting immense pressure on district staff and already crowded schools.
“Tell high school principals, high school principals, ten days before the start of school, we’re going to pull two or three positions,” said Morrison. “Please redo your budgets, and master schedules.”
CMS will take another enrollment count 40 days into the school year. The district will ask the state for more funding when those numbers are verified.
