An enrollment drop in Durham Public Schools (DPS) will cost the district $4.7 million this year as well as state funding for 33 teacher positions next year.
Local districts receive a blend of local and state dollars based on the number of students enrolled. This year, DPS planned as if it would receive funding for 31,223 students. Because about 1,000 fewer enrolled (per an unofficial tally at day 20 of the school year), the district now has to adjust its budget to match.
And Durham isn’t the only district with this problem: Per DPS’s superintendent, 112 of North Carolina’s 115 public school districts saw an overall drop in enrollment this year.
Here’s what those numbers mean for DPS.
In the most recent budget cycle, the county commission dedicated almost a quarter of its $1 billion budget to local schools. DPS receives that money and then, thanks to North Carolina law, must transfer “an amount equal to the per pupil share” of public school funding to charter schools—so when one student leaves DPS for a charter school, DPS then owes that charter school about $5,700 over the course of the year.
Of the total number of Durham students enrolled in DPS and charter schools, DPS projected that about 21 percent would attend charter schools this year, which would require the district to pay about $46 million. With charter enrollment actually jumping to around 23 percent, the district now owes charters about $51 million total. (Charter school transfers only account for about 650 of the total 1,000 drop in enrollment. Other students may have moved to private schools or homeschooling.)
“It almost feels like déjà vu, because we were having this conversation last year,” DPS board chair Bettina Umstead said at a school board meeting this week, though last school year’s situation was a bit more dramatic, as the budget team found that the district owed charters $9.7 million more than projected.
At the meeting, DPS chief financial officer Jeremy Teetor ran through a list of options to reduce expenditures to come up with that $4.7 million. He suggested evaluating service contracts and implementing a hiring freeze (not including bus drivers, positions required by statute, or staff who work with students with special needs).
“As an absolute last resort, we have the conversation of reduction in force,” said Teetor. “That’s certainly something we don’t want to do. We don’t enjoy doing it, and that is why we’re evaluating these other options first.”
The state will fund 33 fewer teacher roles in 2026–27.
North Carolina pays the bulk of public school teacher salaries. With the enrollment drop, the state will adjust the number of teachers it pays for accordingly to meet its ratios. Teetor noted that this isn’t just an enrollment issue, as Durham has been overstaffing (compared to state requirements) some schools.
Deputy superintendent Nicholas King could not yet say what that adjustment will look like. He gave the example of grade levels that ordinarily require one teacher per 24 students, but because of the incorrect projections, DPS has some classes with one teacher and only 12 students. “And so while we would love to be able to have classes that small, it’s just financially unsustainable for us,” King said, as the state will no longer pay the majority of those salaries.
What can the district do?
The best thing for DPS to do is to get students back ASAP.
Because DPS makes payouts to charter schools every month, a student returning to DPS from a charter school “has an immediate implication for what we have to share with charter schools or not share with them,” said Teetor.
Superintendent Anthony Lewis, at the urging of Umstead, said that the administration is studying the enrollment data before creating a multiyear plan to boost enrollment.
Board member Natalie Beyer, citing the 1992 city-county school system merger, again railed against charter schools taking local taxpayer dollars.
“We merged separate but unequal school systems in Durham, because we believe in the rich diversity of schools and children coming together to learn, and we believe in equity and we believe that we do better together,” said Beyer.
Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].