How New Hanover County Schools plans to improve its failing schools

A handful of schools inside New Hanover County have been deemed by the state as failing for the better part of a decade. Now, district officials have introduced a plan aimed at giving these schools, or at least some of them, the help they need.

The school system needs to address the “revolving door” of teachers at its underperforming schools, said Patrice Faison, chief academic officer for New Hanover County Schools, during a recent school board meeting.

“There's a lot of challenges with our low performing schools, but the biggest challenge we face is recruiting and retaining high quality staff,” Faison said. “That is the biggest issue that we have.”

District leaders plan to use a combination of pay incentives and increased support to attract more “highly effective staff” to schools that have some of the least experienced teaching staffs in the county, according to the plan Faison laid out for board members. The hope is that increased incentives and support will entice more experienced teachers who in turn will help improve the performance on these low performing schools. However, the district’s plan only covers two of the school system’s 12 state-identified low performing schools.

Here’s what you need to know about the district’s plan:

What are low performing schools?

Under state law, public schools in North Carolina are graded annually by the state on their performance. The grades are based on two metrics; end-of-grade and end-of-course testing as well as annual growth. Schools which receive a “D” or worse and fail to exceed growth expectations are categorized as low performing.

This year, 12 schools were identified as low performing, which was nearly twice as many from just a few years ago.

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What is the district’s plan?

Under this new plan, which is set to last for three years, all staff (except principals who receive incentives from the state) will receive an additional $250 to $5,000 a year for working at either Forest Hills Elementary or Freeman Elementary, Faison said. Teachers can receive an additional incentive of up to $4,000 if their school exceeds its growth expectations.

Staff across the two schools will also receive additional support and training from the school system because many of the individuals who work at Forest Hills and Freeman are new to their roles, Faison said.

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Why are only two schools involved in the plan?

The reason only Forest Hills and Freeman are receiving this additional support has to do with their status as Comprehensive Support and Improvement schools, Faison said. Over the next three years, Forest Hills and Freeman will receive $284,859 and $181,502 respectively from the federal government because their considered CSI schools, and the district will use those funds to pay for the incentives and increased support.

Schools qualify for CSI funding due to poor graduation rates or because they sit in the bottom 5% of public schools in the state, Faison said. Freeman has been on the state’s list of low-performing schools since the 2014-15 school year, according to state data. Forest Hills has been on the list since the 2016-17 school year.

“We would love to do this for all of our low-performing schools, I just want to say that, but of course, right now, we have funding from our state to do it for the two CSI schools,” Faison said.

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This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: New Hanover County Schools introduces plan to fix its failing schools