Private School Staff Excluded from Required Criminal Background Checks |
This week the NC House took action on a bill to enhance criminal background checks for public school staff and administrators, but members failed to include requirements for private school staff and administrators. Current state law requires traditional public schools to develop and implement a plan to require criminal background checks for staff and administrators. Charter schools are required to follow the policy set by the local school district. However, the law did not address the criminal background of the board of directors of nonprofits seeking to open charter schools, and it left the scope of criminal background check requirements up to local districts. House Bill 775 "Criminal History Checks for School Positions," adds requirements for all school staff (including bus drivers, custodians, substitute teachers, and clerical staff) and independent contractors of traditional and charter schools as well as charter school applicants to pass a criminal background check. This is an important step in ensuring student safety. However, HB 775 does not require criminal background checks for private school board members, administrators or staff, even if the private school accepts taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers. Current law requires a criminal background check for only one person—the staff member with the highest decision-making authority. Why were private schools excluded from HB 775 requirements? Lawmakers truly interested in the safety of our children would require that private schools apply the same safety measures as required by public schools and adjust HB 775 accordingly. |
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HB 775 also enhanced the reporting requirements for public schools (traditional and charter schools). Private schools were left out again. Why? Current state law requires public school administrators to report to the State Board of Education within 30 days of receiving information about any licensed employee (e.g., teacher) who has engaged in misconduct that resulted in disciplinary action, dismissal, or if the employee resigned due to the misconduct. Failure to report the offense to the State Board within 5 days of the disciplinary action or resignation is currently a Class I felony. HB 775 adds a new category of reportable offense: “intentional infliction of emotional distress against a child.” Discussion raised concerns about the bill’s vague language; administrators are left to decide what qualifies as “intentional infliction" and “emotional distress” that merits reporting to the State Board. Current state law also requires school principals to report to local law enforcement if any of a number of offenses occurs on school property (e.g., sexual assault, indecent liberties with a minor, assault involving a weapon). HB 775 adds to the list a “threat directed at a teacher,” but makes some exceptions for threats by students with certain disabilities (e.g., intellectual disability). Discussion by House members again raised concerns about the vague language. HB 775 provides no guidance on the level or type of threat that would require reporting. These enhanced reporting requirements apply to all public schools (traditional and charter). The law makes no mention of reporting requirements for private schools. If lawmakers persist in spending hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars on tuition payments at private schools, they must also ensure that the schools meet the same safety standards as public schools. Contact your legislators. Ask why private schools were excluded from HB 775 safety requirements. |
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The Perfect Storm: NC Public Schools Under Threat |
North Carolina’s public schools have been open for a month. They are facing unprecedented financial challenges that undermine their ability to provide the programs our students need and deserve. These challenges are creating a perfect storm with the potential to push our public education system closer to the brink of disaster. The key factors creating NC’s perfect storm are at all levels of government: federal, state, and local. We have NO finalized state budget for this school year, NO ruling from the NC Supreme Court to release the $1 billion Leandro funding owed to districts, looming federal education cuts totaling $200 million, and the growing inability of local governments, especially low-wealth districts, to absorb the loss of state and federal funding. |
- State Budget Delay: The lack of a finalized state budget creates uncertainty for school districts, affecting planning and delaying programs and services. All state employees, including educators, are impacted as potential salary adjustments and benefits are in limbo. This is the main job of the legislature and is avoidable.
- Leandro Funding Freeze: the decades-old lawsuit against the state for equitable education funding is still stalled, awaiting a ruling from the NC Supreme Court. The Leandro funding is critical for addressing budget gaps between high-wealth (mostly urban) districts and low-wealth (mostly rural) districts. It is essential for providing fair, equitable education that all students deserve and are guaranteed by our state constitution. (Learn more about Leandro here.)
- Federal Funding Cuts: The federal Department of Education is proposing $12 billion in cuts to public education nationwide starting October 1st. NC’s portion of the cuts is projected to be approximately $200 million, but the cuts are not distributed evenly across the state. Rural areas, with many of the lowest wealth communities and schools, are going to suffer the largest cuts. Access our interactive map to see how much funding NC congressional districts stand to lose.
- Local Government Burden: It is the state’s responsibility to fund instructional and operational expenses (including personnel, instructional materials, transportation, and more) while county governments are responsible for the cost of capital expenses (buildings and maintenance). Over time, local governments have been left to shoulder more of the public school funding burden because state-level funding hasn't kept pace with the demand for instructional expenses including recruiting and retaining certified educators. This shift of financial responsibility to local entities, especially in counties with lower tax bases, exacerbates funding inequities between wealthy and poor districts. Public School Forum summarizes their findings on local school finance: “Although the ten poorest counties tax themselves at 1.7 times the rate as the state’s ten wealthiest counties, funding disparities continue to grow between our poorest and wealthiest counties.” (Read More: Trump push to cut support for English learners turns spotlight on states)
A "perfect storm" for worsening public education funding has been the convergence of economic (rising costs and inflation, the loss of pandemic funding, increasing reliance of local property taxes), political (state cuts in corporate cuts, unpredictability of federal funds, increased spending on private school vouchers, and demographic factors ( increased students needs, falling birth rates). These factors are having a negative impact on school budgets, causing significant budget deficits, staff layoffs, and program cuts. A perfect storm does not hit all school districts equally. NC school districts have many pre-existing inequalities centered around poverty and race. When high-poverty school districts receive fewer resources than wealthy ones (as documented in the Leandro case), especially during the extended period of disinvestment schools are facing now, they leave the most vulnerable students even further behind. |
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NC One of the States Most Heavily Impacted by Federal Education Cuts |
Proposed federal education cuts aren’t going to hit all states equally. Some states spend a lot on education and rely less on federal dollars. Other states spend less or serve higher numbers of students in low-income areas, so schools rely more on federal dollars to fill in gaps in state and local funding. An analysis by ERS (Education Resource Strategies) found that North Carolina is one of the 12 states most affected by federal education funding cuts. Their analysis looked at three factors: - How much of each state’s education funding is federal
- How many districts serve students living in poverty
- How many students attend a “high need” district
North Carolina ranked high in all three factors, joining states such as Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and West Virginia. The federal budget has not been finalized. We hope our U.S. senators and representatives do their part to ensure that the proposed cuts are not made. Our students and communities can’t afford another hit. READ MORE |
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Legislative and SBE Updates |
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| The NCGA met this week and advanced several bills. Two are now awaiting Governor Stein’s signature: HB 358/SB 51 “Continuing Budget Operations Part II,” a mini-budget bill moved forward instead of a comprehensive budget bill. HB 358 adds funding for Hurricane Helene relief and makes a number of smaller investments, but it fails to address Medicaid coverage, teacher and state employee salaries, and other major budget items. As a result, schools and staff continue to operate under last year’s budget levels and North Carolinians face major cuts to healthcare. HB 307 "Iryna’s Law,” which had no action since May, moved quickly this week. Originally titled “Various Criminal Law Revisions,” the updated bill was renamed to recognize the recent stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a subway in Charlotte. The bill added several provisions including to more closely monitor magistrates, study mental health, and reinstate the use of the death penalty (halted in NC since 2006). Read our Week in Review for more updates. |
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Blog: NC Students Deserve Honesty and Action |
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| By Kris Nordstrom, NC Justice Center NC Senator Michael Lee is touting his party’s record on school funding on social media, but it’s a drastic exaggeration. Lee has spent the majority of his time at the NC General Assembly as one of the Senate’s key education budget writers. One would then expect that Lee would be able to provide his followers with an accurate picture of the state of school funding in North Carolina. Unfortunately, he fails to do so. In his post on how public school funding has changed in North Carolina from 2014 to 2024, Lee dramatically overstated the extent of the increase. Lee’s bottom line is that funding increased so much over this ten-year period, that the state is now “investing $1.7 billion more than inflation [would account for] alone.” In reality, per-student funding has only increased slightly during this period due to several factors. An experienced budget writer should know better. The main issue with Lee’s post is that he fails to recognize that schools face a rate of inflation that differs from traditional measures like the Consumer Price Index. The CPI measures the price changes of a “basket of goods” for a typical urban consumer. Of course, a school district’s “basket of goods” looks a lot different than the typical person’s expenditures. North Carolina school districts spend over 90 percent of their funding on salaries and benefits for staff, most of whom are college-educated. READ MORE |
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| The teacher pay penalty reached a record high in 2024! Over the past three decades, stagnant weekly wages of public school teachers have fallen further and further behind those of college graduates who chose other careers, resulting in an ever increasing teacher pay gap that hit a record high in 2024. READ MORE |
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Making NC Schools the BEST in the Nation |
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| Pillar 5 of Achieving Educational Excellence: 2025-30 Strategic Plan for North Carolina Public Schools is Optimize Operational Excellence. NCDPI is committed to reimagining its operational infrastructure to better serve schools and districts through a focus on organizational excellence…Through modernized operations at both the state and local levels, we aim to use cutting-edge technology, streamlined processes and data-informed decision-making to eliminate unnecessary administrative burdens. Through this pillar, NCDPI will model that careful attention to processes, systems and service delivery creates the essential foundation upon which educational innovation can flourish, ultimately ensuring that North Carolina’s public schools operate with maximum effectiveness to support the success of every student. Pillar 5 includes five specific measures of success including these two: - Establish a baseline and increase the number of PSUs (public schools) that adopt modernized financial and human resources systems.
- Establish a baseline and decrease total statewide technology contract expenditures by renegotiating or discontinuing contracts that fall below established return on investment benchmarks and redirect the savings to high-impact, evidence-based tools.
To achieve these goals, the plan identities actions grouped into three focus areas. Each focus area includes multiple actions and target completion dates. Below is an example action for each focus area: - Improve NCDPI’s services to stakeholders: Create and share NCDPI guidance focused on capacity building for PSUs, including best practices for strategic purchasing decisions and aligning budget decisions with instructional priorities. (June 2026)
- Improve collaboration and communication across NCDPI offices: Establish an intra-agency working group to identify and address barriers to operational consistency, collaboration and communication across NCDPI offices. (January 2026)
- Modernize NCDPI and PSU operations: Develop and implement a uniform framework for the handling of data, including collection, validation, management, security and reporting processes, across all NCDPI departments. (March 2026)
- Superintendent Green is traveling around the state to share the plan and engage stakeholders. Find locations and times at the NCDPI website. On Monday, September 29th, he will in the Sandhills.
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| We have had some terrific webinars in the past few weeks, but if you missed one, don't worry. We record our webinars and post them to our website so you can catch the ones you missed and watch them as many times as you want. Recent Webinars: - Achieving Educational Excellence: A Conversation with Superintendent Mo Green
- Leandro & the Courts: An Update with NC Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls
Find All Webinars Here |
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| Multiple Dates, 7:00-8:30 pm: Resilience and ACES. Learn about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) and resilience. Join us for this award-winning, 60-minute film, Resilience: The Biology of Stress & The Science of Hope. This documentary examines how abuse, neglect, and other adverse childhood experiences affect children’s development & health outcomes in adulthood. This powerful movie is a conversation starter and a perspective changer. REGISTER HERE |
All screenings are on Thursday and include time for discussion. - October 23, 2025
- January 22, 2026
- February 26, 2026
- March 26, 2026
We will also set up a private screening for your school staff, PTA, civic group, church, or synagogue. Email us: [email protected] |
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Words to Remember"The typical American private school serves just 30 students, has modest tuition and might meet in a church basement." — Dana Goldstein, NYT Article on new report: The Effects of Universal School Vouchers on Private School Tuition and Enrollment |
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Help us support public schools!Public Schools First NC is a statewide nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused solely on pre-K to 12 public education issues. We collaborate with parents, teachers, business and civic leaders, and communities across North Carolina to advocate for one unified system of public education that prepares each child for productive citizenship. |
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