Clay County Schools most parent-friendly in state, study says

Listen to the January 25, 2010 School Board Meeting.

Clay County Schools has ranked as the most parent-friendly school system in North Carolina, according to a new report from the John Locke Foundation.

Superintendent Scott Penland said he stumbled across an article about the study in “Carolina Journal” and thought he should share it with the school board.

Clay County secured the No. 1 ranking in the state this year by raising its grade from B to B+. Cherokee County ranked No. 2 and earned the only other B+. No district earned an A grade. Only 15 other districts in the whole state earned a B or B-.

Terry Stoops, JLF education policy analyst, said that “school districts in western North Carolina generally fared well in the ‘parent-friendly’ rankings, with seven of the top ten districts being located in the west.”

Districts located in and around major city centers including Charlotte and the Research Triangle fared poorly.

“In general, smaller school districts proved to be more parent-friendly than large school districts,” Stoops said. “Most of the top-performing school districts enrolled fewer than 10,000 students.”

The assessment was based on 11 different measures in the four categories of administration, teachers, safety and performance. Measures include end-of-grade reading and math scores, four-year graduation rates, and school crime statistics. Also included are statistics linked to teacher turnover and teaching vacancies, the percentage of each school system’s staff devoted to jobs outside classroom teaching, and results of a Teacher Working Conditions survey.

“The school districts that fared well in this ranking were generally small districts with stable, high-performing teaching staffs,” Stoops said, adding that school districts should focus attention on their parent-friendly rankings.

“It would be easy for teachers, administrators, and staff to believe the schools belong to them,” he said. “Ratings for parent-friendly schools shift the attention back to the families the schools were designed to serve.”

Penland shared an article with the board that detailed ten issues to watch in 2010. The predictions were made by the Public School Forum.

Reauthorization of No Child Left Behind topped the list at No. 1.

Penland said that he believed the education legislation would become Congress’ main focus once they move past health care.

The second issue to watch was the National Standards Movement.

“That’s gaining momentum,” he said. The National Standards Movement is a plan to use the same testing systems across all 50 states.

Penland said the fifth issue, continued budget woes in North Carolina, was important to note as well. The article read:

“To make up the gap that will be created when, or if, the temporary taxes and federal subsidy dollars come to an end, state tax collections would have to increase 27 percent before July 1 of 2011.Even the rosiest economic projections find such an increase highly improbable.”

“I expect this tells me that we’re probably going to be okay for the rest of the year. We’re not going to get hit with reversion or have to do furloughs,” Penland said. “The budget’s already done for next year. There’s already a reduction in it over this year but that generally doesn’t mean a lot… we’re in pretty good shape.”

In addition, the board voted to release students Zachary Stiles and Jonathan Garrett to Cherokee County.

• Parts of this article are from the Carolina Journal.