Orange County Schools to get $328,000 in Race to the Top funds

Although the state was awarded $400 million in federal education funds, the amount Orange County Schools will see for each of four years could equal little more than the cost for one teacher.

Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Marcie Holland presented Board of Education members with the district’s projected allotment from the Race to the Top fund Monday night.

Holland said the district will receive about $328,000 in grant money, spread over four years.

District officials will have a meeting next week to discuss plans and complete an application for the money.

The Race to the Top fund is designed to support states with innovative ideas for improvements in student achievement, standardized assessments, data systems and professional development.

North Carolina, along with nine other states, was selected to receive funds in the second phase of the competition, bringing the number of states awarded money to 12.

School districts were allocated money based on the socioeconomic status of the children they served.

Board members said they are concerned that the extensive publicity surrounding the grant doesn’t match the payout, especially since $200 million is being used by the state to finance other education programs.

“Its a lot of hype,” said School Board Member Brenda Stephens. “When the noise goes dead, you think, ‘So what are we really getting?’”

Additionally, the district will lose nearly $57,000 of its initial allotment to help finance a state “education cloud” — a data infrastructure that would maintain hardware and server space for every district.

“The cloud computing is a structure whereby school districts rent space and rent programs based on usage,” said June Atkinson, state superintendent of public instruction.

“That means instead of every school district having its own servers, having technicians to run it, to keep the servers going, the cloud computing would rent storage for every single school district in the state.”

Atkinson said while the infrastructure will cost $34 million, officials estimate it will save school districts a combined $14 million to $20 million each year.

But School Board Member Stephen Halkiotis said he is skeptical of how much the district will benefit from the infrastructure.

“I’ve never even heard of an education cloud, like its a giant database floating around in the heavens,” he said. “I think it’s troubling that the bulk of the money is obviously not going to the children.”

Atkinson said although only half of the total funding is being doled out to districts, the remainder will still benefit teachers and students.

“What we’re doing is building a system of feedback and assessments,” said Atkinson, who likened the initiative to a GPS.

“When a student gets off track, we will have a recalculating function so that the student and the teacher can get back on track to the desired destination.”

Atkinson said the state must turned in a detailed scope of work to the U.S. Department of Education by Nov. 22.

All the new initiatives must be in place by 2014, she said.

In the meantime, school board members are left wondering how much they’ll really be getting out of the grant slated to “make education America’s national mission.”

“I think it’s just very disappointing that the general public thinks that the state got $400 million, and it’s all going toward children,” Halkiotis said. “Obviously its not. We’re getting a pittance.”

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.