Orange County School Board rules home-schooled kids can't participate in extracurriculars

The Orange County School Board ruled Tuesday night that students who are home-schooled or attend private school will not be allowed to participate in single courses or district extracurricular activities.

Chief Academic Officer Denise Morton said the district formerly had no hard-and-fast policy on the matter despite an uptick in the number of requests for involvement in activities like band and athletics.

“Some homework went into developing this once we realized that we were receiving some phone calls,” Morton said.

Morton said she consulted the senior staff attorney for the North Carolina School Board Association, Kathy Boyd, for guidance on the decision.

“We looked at five different school districts and their policies,” Morton said. “We don’t generate money from these students, and we’re recommending that they be fully enrolled in the district.”

Achievement data

Morton and Mary Calhoun, director of testing and accountability, also presented to the board the student achievement data for the 2009-2010 school year.

The data measures the overall performance of the district’s students as well as the achievement gaps between students of different races.

Morton said courses that the bulk of students are required to take, like Algebra I and English, showed improvement in bridging the gap.

“We’ve got some work to do,” Morton said, “but I think we made some really significant strides in those areas.”

Calhoun added that females outperformed males in the district almost consistently.

“We’ve got a problem with our Hispanic males, and we’ve got a problem with our black males,” Calhoun said. “So that’s what we’re looking at and that’s what we’re talking to our principals about.”

The board discussed the Sept. 23 joint meeting with the Orange County Board of Commissioners and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City of Schools Board of Education.

T*ax earnings*

Board members questioned how much money the district would receive if the county commissioners’ proposed quarter-cent tax hike passed following a November referendum.

At a Sept. 2 meeting, commissioners decided that Orange County Schools and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools would split 42.5 percent of the tax earnings.

But board vice chairwoman Donna Coffey said the earnings won’t necessarily be split evenly, and that the resolution commissioners passed would only stand for the next five years.

“After that, it doesn’t say what happens,” Coffey said, bringing to light the possibility that the tax earnings could disappear after the five-year window.

Board member Debbie Piscitelli said the board should bring up the idea of “fair funding,” or splitting the earnings equally between the two school systems.

“There’s no guarantee we get money,” Piscitelli said. “I think we need a plan for that.”

Board members also agreed on topics to bring up at the meeting, including long-range state budget projections, loss of federal stimulus funds, and federal education jobs funding.

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