Guilford Schools Leader Addresses Challenges As The Academic Year Begins

It hasn't be an easy year for the Guilford County School District. Recently, lead was found in drinking water at some sites, a tornado in April forced three schools to close, displacing students, and there are a myriad of other infrastructure needs. The district also changed how it handles universal lunch and breakfast at several schools.

WFDD's Keri Brown spoke with Superintendent Dr. Sharon Contreras about what the district is doing.

School Lunches

A federal program called the Community Eligibility Provision or CEP has grabbed the attention of parents. It funds meals for all students at schools in low-income areas. But now families have to fill out an application, adding an extra hurdle to receiving those services, especially when poverty is still an issue in the district.

Contreras says in order for schools to qualify for CEP, there has to be a certain percentage of students in federal aid programs, like those in foster care or who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). That percentage has dropped because a lot of families are opting out.  

“Some of them are undocumented. Some of them are just nervous about the entire governmental process and also the law seems to be tightening about who qualifies for these services,” says Contreras. "The percentage of free and reduced lunch students is tied to your grant funding, your Title I and Title II funding, whether you get reading and math specialists, so we decided to go back to collecting the free and reduced lunch applications because they don't go outside of the district. Parents don't have to fear that we are turning that information over to someone other than our food services division.”

Achievement Gaps

Poverty issues are also linked to another challenge for Guilford County Schools: achievement gaps. Contreras says the district is taking steps to help improve academic outcomes.

“We want to make sure that you can't predict the student performance by race. Right now you can, and that's highly problematic,” says Contreras. “We've created equity teams in the 13 learning areas, and most importantly, we are focused on improving the quality of teaching, so we have invested several million dollars in just teacher training. It's going to take some time to improve. This isn't going to be easy. You could see a decline before it goes up, but we feel we have put structures in place to start addressing the achievement gap.”

Lead In Drinking Water, Infrastructure Needs

Guilford County School officials have been dealing with concerns over high levels of lead found in drinking water at some buildings, after three schools tested for elevated levels in the district. Contreras says old faucets needing to be replaced underscores a huge need for new buildings. The average age of a school in Guilford County is over 50 years old.

“We are working with our board of the county commission. We have a facility study underway. We divided the cost in half and are spending about $900,000 to actually assess the quality of the buildings and then to rank in what order do we need to start renovating. Do we need to close some down? Do we need to make safety enhancements? So, we are working on that, but still there's no funding source,” says Contreras.

She adds, “It's somewhat disheartening when I see all of the universities around us. The public universities are able to make major improvements, but we can't get the students to the universities if we don't offer them high quality education pre-K through 12 and make sure that they have state of the art facilities at that level.”

Tornado Schools And School Safety

Contreras says the district is still trying to figure out what to do with three schools damaged by a tornado. Students were relocated when they were closed and the community is left wondering what will happen next.

“We continue to work with our insurance companies and our attorneys to negotiate how much we will receive in an insurance claim and until that time we can't really make a decision,” she says. “When we have more information, we will meet with those families from all six schools – because you have the three that are tornado impacted and the three that are housing them – to let them know what our recommendations are and hear from the community whether or not it's acceptable to them.”

When asked if it's even a thought at this point that some of them won't be rebuilt, Contreras says it's "highly unlikely that we will receive enough in insurance claims to rebuild all three buildings.”

Contreras says the district is also trying something new this year to improve safety in schools. A pilot program known as the GCS OneCard, which will require students to use an ID card to swipe in and out of buildings, even board the bus. Seven schools are testing the system.

*You can follow WFDD's Keri Brown on Twitter @kerib_news