NC school board silent on why superintendent left. Parents call for common ground.

Orange County parents showed up Monday to criticize losing an embattled schools leader and push the school board toward common ground.

An audit, meanwhile, has warned the district to prepare for mounting budget issues.

Monday’s specially called board meeting followed the sudden departure of Superintendent Monique Felder on Aug. 2. The district has since removed Felder’s letter announcing her decision from its website, but public records obtained by The News & Observer showed she will get over $200,000 in severance pay and other compensation.

Interim Superintendent Jim Merrill was hired to serve up to six months while the district seeks a new leader. Merrill is earning $21,500 per month, according to a draft contract.

Board members did not address the leadership change Monday.

Parent Jim West, one of over a dozen speakers Monday, told the board he was “pretty upset” to hear Felder was leaving, because he thought she “was doing the right thing.” Now, he worries about the district’s direction and the years of work promoting equity, he said.

“I ask you guys, do not put another superintendent under the crosshairs. Do not try to politicize something. This is about the kids,” West said.

Felder’s supporters, who held a “Save Our Superintendent” rally on July 22 in Hillsborough, have accused the board of failing to extend her contract as a way of pushing her out. The contract, extended twice before, was set to expire on June 30, 2025.

Some speakers were more direct with the board Monday, calling out four members who have opposed district recommendations in split votes over the last year.

Three of the four members — board Chair Anne Purcell, Vice Chair Andre Richmond and member Will Atherton — were elected in 2022 with the support of a new, moderate political action committee, Friends of Orange County Schools.

The group has pushed for more attention on academics and less on the equity issues that Felder championed.

The board’s 4-3 split is “evidence of a deeply divided board ... run by a majority of four who has made no effort to build consensus with the group,” former board member Hillary MacKenzie said Monday. The group appears to have ousted Felder, she said, calling on the public to target another moderate member, Bonnie Hauser, in the 2024 election.

“This action seems to signify that they believe it is appropriate to pay a leader $200,000 to walk away from the work of centering students who have historically been underserved by our district, even though data indicates that Dr. Felder was growing all of our students faster than any leader in the entire state,” MacKenzie said.

Calls for unity, focus on students

Felder has not explained her decision to leave now, but an attorney for the district said in a letter obtained by The N&O that the board did not “oust” her or vote on a contract extension, as first reported by Indy Week.

“There is no rule that superintendent contracts must be extended annually, nor any barrier to such extensions being made at any time,” attorney Neal Ramee said. “A failure to extend a contract to the maximum extent allowed by law at any particular point in time cannot fairly be described as an ‘ouster’.”

The district provided a copy of Felder’s personnel agreement, which says she is leaving voluntarily — and not being terminated — “in the best interest of both parties.”

Earl Tye, a parent with the Friends of Orange County Schools, thanked the board for approving Felder’s separation agreement.

The district still has problems, from a request earlier this year for money to cover shortfalls to academic performance that still trails the state average in some cases, declining student enrollment, and a lack of transparency and communication with the public, he said.

“If it’s not obvious, bad things happen when adults aren’t in the classroom, when adults aren’t in the building. Academics suffer, discipline suffers, morale suffers,” Tye said.

Polly Dornette and other parents pushed for a unified approach to running the district. Board members in the past seven years have focused on their differences and how to undo the actions of previous boards or push through their own agendas, rather than giving students the certified teachers and safe environment they need to learn, Dornette said.

“I’m here tonight to ask all of you to stop this divide, to ask for all seven of you to quit focusing on your differences, but instead (focus) on what you have in common — a desire for each child in Orange County Schools to become all that they can be,” she said.

A few parents pushed for more board action. Sarah Snipes said the split with Felder is a “new opportunity for our district to re-focus on academic education and excellence.”

“For far too long in this district, there has been a heavy focus on controversial social and political topics. This has been a distraction and a lack of attention on academics, a lack of attention on staff and teachers, and it has resulted in the deterioration of our district as is evident in the county’s core performance and budgetary issues,” she said

Reports: Hiring decisions, budget shortfall

The Orange County school board is no stranger to conflict, having handled several high-profile decisions and leadership changes in the last few years, beginning in 2019 with a controversial and sudden vote to replace then-Chair Brenda Stephens with Atherton.

Incidents involving the Proud Boys and Moms for Liberty members made the news, as did a board vote to re-name two schools with namesakes linked to slavery and racist institutions. In November, Stephens and MacKenzie, who was targeted by conservative groups for her outspoken work against white supremacy and racism, stepped down from the board.

An independent report commissioned by Felder that year (updated in 2022) that found the school board was too involved in day-to-day operations. The district had six interim and full-time superintendents in the span of a decade before hiring Felder.

The report, from interviews with district principals and central office staff, also reported problems with morale, a “laissez faire culture,” and a lack of clarity about leadership roles.

This year, the board dived deeper into the district’s hiring and budget decisions, with a study of central office staffing and an audit of district spending that included budgets, contracts and other financial information from the last three school years.

The audit, which found unsustainable budget conditions, was conducted after Felder asked the board for $985,000 in March to meet unfunded needs, including money for extra staff duties, substitutes, and pandemic-related custodial services, bus drivers and teachers.

The shortfall shouldn’t have been a surprise, Felder’s supporters have said, because the board knew county funding was limited to pay rising costs and the schools have faced additional expenses since the pandemic.

The board approved the funding but also put a 90-day freeze on central office hiring, and limits on travel, professional development and other costs. On Monday, the board voted to restore most of that funding.

Enrollment triggers funding cuts

A bigger potential problem is ahead, as illustrated by the district’s decision to hire new personnel when its student enrollment was falling, the HIL Group audit said. It identified 76 new, full-time positions added since 2020, despite the loss of over 240 students.

Last year, the district lost 117 students, for a total enrollment of roughly 7,128 students, reports showed. Charter school enrollment grew to 951 students during that same time — an increase of 32 students. This year, enrollment could fall to around 7,000 students, said Rhonda Rath, the district’s chief finance officer.

A separate study conducted earlier this year found that that the district’s central office is overstaffed, based on the numbers alone, but not much different from eight similarly sized school districts in five states.

The district, with 25 top administrators, actually has a lower student to director ratio than many other schools, the report said. Most of the redundancies, it concluded, are in finance and curriculum and instruction, “key pieces of every school system organization.”

Additional cuts could require a full analysis, the report said. The HIL Group audit also recommended further study, noting that the district turned to pandemic relief money to pay for three teachers when the state cut funding last year tied to enrollment numbers.

Six other teachers that the state no longer funded are being paid with savings from vacant positions, district officials said.

When the relief money runs out in September 2024, the board won’t be able to turn to the district’s fund balance — money that isn’t spent and can be used in future years — because it’s not a sustainable solution, the HIL Group reported. The available fund balance has fallen from $6.1 million in 2020 to just over $2.7 million this year, it said.

The audit recommended the board hold budget planning sessions, starting with a zero-based budget, which assumes everything is on the table, and an outside facilitator. The district also should review central services, establish new policies and approve all pay increases, supplements and stipends, ensuring there is money in the budget to cover those expenses, it said.