Elections, as the trite but true saying goes, have consequences.
Many of those consequences are unintended and unforeseen until they jump up to bite us.
That is the case with what is happening in North Carolina’s public schools, including those in the Cumberland County system. In part because of changes made at the state level in the North Carolina General Assembly, parents have many more options regarding where their children go to school, and a lower percentage of school-age students are now in traditional public schools. Layer on a national birth rate that began falling sharply in 2007 and has not recovered, and there are simply fewer children sitting in desks at the public school in your neighborhood.
Cumberland County School Board members learned earlier this year that system-wide enrollment is just over 47,000 students, down more than 2.5 percent, or 1,242 students. Picture that number of kiddos on a playground in your mind, and it is apparent that this is a lot of young people. The Digest of Education Statistics reports that fall enrollment in the local school system was 53,346 in 2004. In other words, lack of normal growth notwithstanding, almost 6200 students are somewhere else.
So, where are all the children most of us expected to be in those desks?
Some, including many military dependents, moved with their families to other communities. Some, fortified by your tax dollars and mine in the form of so-called Opportunity Scholarships, are in private schools with next-to-no official oversight and some of which have decidedly religious slants. Others are being educated at home, with wildly varying outcomes. Some children have simply fallen through the cracks, especially after COVID, a time when some parents simply quit sending their children to online classes or to any sort of school at all.
Some of these departed students will do well in the individual situations, some will not do as well as public school students, and some we will never hear from or about again.
The financial bottom line here is that Cumberland County Schools, as well as other North Carolina public school systems experiencing similar enrollment declines, may receive lower levels of state and federal funding. This means less money to maintain aging facilities, to pay teachers and other personnel, to establish and maintain programs for exceptional children of all levels, and next to no money for “educational extras.”
It also means there is more school room than students to fill it, indicating some schools may close altogether. Cumberland County School Board members are already dealing with what to do with several aging and emptying elementary school facilities as well as building a new EE Smith High School to replace the storied original. These are hard choices facing our community and the reason the Cumberland County schools are asking for almost $671 million to fund the next school year.
Back to elections have consequences.
Most people, both Democrats and Republicans, are increasingly focused on the midterm elections, widely viewed as a referendum on our current national and international situations. Maybe, just maybe, we should give more thought to candidates for the North Carolina General Assembly. Do they support our state’s public schools? Do they support sending tax dollars, yours and mine, to unregulated private religious schools? Generally speaking, do they believe that solid public education promotes a stronger and more competent populace and a more competitive state?
Maybe, just maybe, we should vote accordingly.