The last time Orange County’s commissioners and school board members held a joint meeting, the local officials agonized over how to maintain quality public education without making the county even less affordable.
Four months later, even with budget discussions over and a new school year underway, the boards are still dealing with many of the same issues: Rising costs, uncertain federal funding, declining enrollment, and pressure to keep county tax hikes to a minimum. At a joint meeting this week, members of the Orange County Commission, the Orange County School (OCS) Board, and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (CHCCS) Board tried to lay out some sort of path forward. And while the vibes were friendly among the electeds, the conversation itself was a bit grim.
Here are four takeaways about the future of K–12 education in Orange County.
1. Both districts are opening new elementary schools soon.
That’s thanks to the $300 million bond referendum to support school facilities approved by about two-thirds of county residents in 2024. OCS has determined that the most urgent priority is the construction of a new elementary school near Gravelly Hill Middle School. Officials hope to open the new school for the fall of 2029, though chief operating officer Fredrick Davis warned that construction timelines can always get complicated, especially with a project that involves both the county and a school board.
That’s a notable development given there have been some vague discussions about whether the district should consider closing elementary schools in response to lagging enrollment (more on that later.)
CHCCS is planning to replace Carrboro Elementary School on the existing site. Students will remain in the existing building until the new one is complete. “We are aggressively targeting fall of 2028,” said CHCCS deputy superintendent for operations Al Ciarochi, but noted that they had the flexibility to continue into 2029.
Officials have emphasized that these are not expansion projects but necessary replacements because the existing buildings are reaching the end of their life cycle.
“This is not a capacity project, this is a replacement project,” said Ciarochi.
2. Schools are not happy about the state budget standoff.
While municipalities have had their budgets squared away since June, the state legislature still hasn’t passed a statewide budget, instead continuing at previous funding levels.
As a result, teachers, whose pay is set by the state, haven’t received a raise, even though a pay bump was outlined in drafts put forth by the house, the senate, and the governor. That paralysis means that districts can’t be entirely sure how much money they’ll eventually get from the state.
“It’s been indicated to us that the General Assembly does not really have time to even take up [budgeting] until November of 2025,” CHCCS chief financial officer Jonathan Scott told the group.
Scott’s OCS counterpart, Rhonda Rath, echoed some of his presentation, adding that “we are being very conservative and very thoughtful in our spending, and we are just continuing to review all of our departmental budgets and scaling back where we can and where it is appropriate with student outcomes being our priority.”
3. When it comes to staffing, “retention is the new recruitment.”
That line, dropped several times by OCS superintendent Danielle Jones at the meeting, refers to staffing challenges both districts have faced in recent years. And developments like that lack of a state budget are probably not helping much in convincing people to pursue the noble profession of educating our nation’s youth.
With North Carolina teacher pay among the lowest in the country, CHCCS chief human resource officer Ashauna Harris pointed out that while vacancies continue to be a problem, the pipeline of new teachers is also weakening.
“We know that teacher education programs are no longer producing the number of educators that they have in previous years,” said Harris. “So we are working very hard to retain the staff that we do have.”
While CHCCS is overall at 98 percent of full staffing levels, roles for those working with children with special needs (often initialized as “EC,” or “exceptional children”) lag behind at about 93 percent. “Hopefully our state, our state government, will make some moves and make some improvements in salaries. But right now, this is a very difficult position to fill, because those EC classrooms, these are really tough assignments,” said Harris.
OCS has a similar rate of vacancy among EC staff, which drew a question from commissioner Phyllis Portie-Ascott.
“For the EC teacher vacancies, how are we covering the classes?” asked Portie-Ascott. “Is it that we are using substitutes, or are we doubling up on the classes, or what are we doing to educate those students?”
OCS’s Rath said that the district was using long-term subs, especially by recruiting already-retired instructors for help, and by providing stipends to other teachers who step in.
That shortage also applies to nonteaching staff. A bus driver shortage has caused major drama in other districts, especially Durham, though Harris noted that CHCCS has been able to use existing staff to avoid that kind of crisis. “We’re not 100 percent staffed, but I will say that the entire office of transportation, down to the directors, the bookkeepers—everyone drives a bus,” said Harris.
4. Orange County is getting older, and fewer kids are enrolling in schools.
“Thank you. That was very depressing,” said CHCCS board member Barbara Fedders after a presentation on the county’s demographics.
While Orange County is growing overall (the county’s population is expected to be 30 percent higher in 2050), its youngest population group is not. In the Chapel Hill–Carrboro area, for instance, the population under five years old has declined by about 11 percent over the past 10 years. CHCCS superintendent Rodney Trice showed a graph of kindergarten enrollment over the past 10 years, with a plot line that took a big hit in 2020 and has continued to slope downward.
“There are just fewer school-age children enrolling in our schools,” said Trice. “But … it’s not just about birth rates, it’s about housing cost and availability” squeezing young families out.
That’s a problem for school systems that receive funding based on enrollment numbers. The districts have long been aware of this problem, but it doesn’t make the solutions seem any easier. CHCCS officials have already discussed the future possibility of closing an elementary school to consolidate resources, which is sure to cause some strife for parents and teachers alike.
Commissioner Jean Hamilton wondered if the board could better anticipate future class sizes by tracking ongoing construction, especially in the dense Chapel Hill–Carrboro area. Hamilton suggested that the planning departments across Orange County government could help by giving “a sense of what’s being built at what price point,” which may indicate whether or not children may move in there.
Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].