Discussion addresses discrepancies between orange county school systems

Officials from both school districts in Orange County discussed Wednesday the economic and academic reasons that the two systems, often deemed unequal, are better off separate.

The history of Orange County’s two school systems has been wrought with accusations of inequality and unsuccessful attempts at a merger.

APPLES Service Learning Initiative held a panel discussion Wednesday to discuss the reasons behind the separate systems as students volunteer more in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools than in Orange County Schools.

APPLES, which used to only send volunteers to CHCCS, began incorporating Orange County Schools in its 2009 program that introduces freshmen to local volunteer opportunities.

“We went to Orange County Schools this year, and we decided not to leave it at that but continue to talk about why there are two systems,” said Nisha Verma, a member of the SLI committee which hosted the event.

The districts are often considered unequal because CHCCS has an additional district tax that evens out to $1,593 more per pupil.

But Orange County Schools spokesman Michael Gilbert said the district is catching up in closing the achievement gap while the Orange County Board of Commissioners is not leaving the system’s coffers empty.

“The county commissioners are funding us at a rate that other counties are salivating at,” he said, adding that the graduation rate has increased 12 percent in the last few years with a focus on four-year colleges instead of vocational programs.

Though the last discussion to merge the districts ended in December 2003, county commissioner Valerie Foushee said the equity gap between the two school systems has been closing.

“Equity is not as big a conversation as it was four years ago,” she said.

Jon Corcoran is a parent and teacher in Orange County Schools. He said the school system has served his children well and that a merger would take away an important sense of community inherent in the system.

 “It’s easy to view the situation as the haves and have-nots,” Corcoran said. “But Orange County Schools are thriving as a school system in ways that standardized tests do not reflect.”

If the schools did merge, state law says that the smaller merging school system would have to adopt the per pupil cost of the larger merging school system, Foushee said.

That would mean a 25 percent or more increase in taxes that Foushee said Orange County residents aren’t willing to pay.

“You simply can’t absorb a 25 percent tax increase,” she said.

Instead of merging, the two school systems decided to collaborate and share resources as much as possible. That includes UNC volunteers, which Gilbert said are always welcome.

The schools often have joint teacher trainings, share strategies in English as a Second Language education and have a joint college fair for high school students.

“Any time that we can work together,” Gilbert said, “we have.”



Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.