Consolidation one of many cost-cutting education measures in 2010

Smaller, leaner, more efficient.
Those three words sum up 2010 for the Burke County Public Schools.
Enrollment for 2010-11 dropped to the lowest level since the mid-1990s, continuing a trend that started seven years ago. The school district had 13,429 students this fall, which is at least 1,000 less than in 2002-03.
The district also started 2010-11 with fewer school buildings to operate after consolidating six facilities into three. Mountain View and Hillcrest elementary schools in Morganton became Mountain Crest Elementary in the Hillcrest building. Drexel Primary and Hallyburton Elementary in Drexel were combined into Drexel Elementary School. And the former Hallyburton building became the new Hallyburton Academy, consolidating the alternative high school programs from Hildebran and Morganton.
Coping with less revenue from the recession-battered state government’s coffers, the Burke County school district continued its efforts to become more efficient. One notable success was an energy-conservation program that resulted in 12 schools’ receiving federal Energy Star certification.
The school district also achieved a remarkable turn-around in its financial condition. After starting 2009-10 some $440,000 in the red, and despite unusual legal expenses in the first quarter, Burke County Public Schools finished the fiscal year with more than $2 million in its fund balance. How? Basically, by going on a starvation diet, which meant not spending money on anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary.
Of course, Burke County Public Schools is not the only source of education in the county.
Morganton Day School, a private operation, and New Dimensions, the county’s charter school, both reported higher enrollment this fall. Morganton Day School benefited from a new junior kindergarten for 4-year-olds. New Dimensions enjoyed a 20 percent increase, to 104 students, after the Mountain View-Hillcrest consolidation. But the economic pressure took a toll on smaller, private parochial schools and both Silver Creek Adventist and Morganton Christian School reported having fewer students.
The biggest increase was in home schooling. The N.C. Division of Non-Public Education reported a 9 percent increase in local home schoolers to a total of 940 in 2009-10.
All of the elementary-age programs are suffering in some way from the same demographic plight: fewer babies born in Burke County in the past decade.
The high schools, on the other hand, are near capacity — Patton High School actually started 2010-11 above its rated capacity — and Western Piedmont Community College had so many students cramming its halls in 2009-10 that the college had to build a new parking lot.
After several years of rapid growth, Western Piedmont’s enrollment leveled off last fall. The numbers swelled starting in 2007-08 as the national recession deepened and unemployment rates rose. More graduating high school seniors chose the community college as a relatively low-cost entry into higher education, more people who never completed high school took advantage of Western Piedmont’s basic-skills and GED programs, and others sought to bolster their skills and knowledge with continuing education.
According to official reports from the North Carolina Community College System, the Morganton-based community college had 3,700 students in curricular programs in 2007-08, 3,960 in 2008-09 and 4,340 in 2009-10.
Heading into 2011, all of the schools face a similar challenge: how to cushion their fall off a financial cliff.
Federal stimulus funds that propped up Burke County Public Schools’ finances in 2009-10 and this year will end. That amounts to $5.9 million the school district won’t have available in 2011-12. Though new federal support from the 2010 education jobs bill and Race to the Top money will help make up some of the loss, it won’t cover all of it.
Burke County Public Schools, New Dimensions and Western Piedmont Community College all anticipate losing state support, too. Burke County Public Schools will get less because much of its state and federal funding is based on enrollment. But making matters worse is the state’s anticipated $3.7-billion budget shortfall. Legislators, the governor and state agencies already are talking about potential cuts as high as 15 percent.
Schools Superintendent Art Stellar warned the Burke County Board of Education in November that it might have to operate the schools next year with $11.4 million less money.
“It will be the most-difficult year we’ve ever experienced,” he said.
Budget cuts could affect the North Carolina School for the Deaf, too. After the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Education Services produced a report that proposed consolidating the state’s schools for the deaf and blind, NCSD supporters rallied and successfully lobbied the legislature to not only keep NCSD open, but to transfer responsibility for its oversight and operation to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.
However, as State Board of Education Chairman Bill Harrison explained in August, “As it stands now..., DPI was not given additional resources to manage the daily business operations for the schools, which include budget, purchasing, payroll, human resources and other support services.”
Barring some unforeseen change in plans, N.C. DPI will take over NCSD in 2011.

Editor’s Note: During this last week of the year, The News Herald will recap the stories that made headlines in 2010. Categories include news of the weird, politics, education, the economy, the weather, breaking news and homicides.