Board of Education Approves Resolution On GCS Funding

The Guilford County Board of Education approved a resolution asking the North Carolina governor and legislature to provide funding to fully support Guilford County Schools.

The Board approved the resolution at its March 12, 2013 meeting. The resolution names a number of reasons for the legislature to provide adequate funding, including:

• Students in our community and state must compete with students from across the globe for 21st century jobs;
• Every student must have an equal opportunity to receive a sound basic education and every school must have the resources necessary to do so;
• The 2012-13 state budget allocated 11 percent less to public education than during the 2007-08 fiscal year, even as public school enrollment has increased;
• State budget cuts have resulted in the loss of $43.2 million and hundreds of full-time positions for GCS since 2008-09, while enrollment has grown by more than 900 students;
• Based on the 2012 Public School of NC Local Finance Study, Guilford County is ranked 17th in the state for per-pupil expenditure at the local level, despite being the third-largest district in the state; and
• The future of the state and nation depends on the education of our local young people.

The resolution was also supported by the Board of Directors of the Guilford Education Alliance, the Guilford County Board of the PTA Council, the Greensboro Chapter of the NAACP, the Guilford County Association of Educators and the League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad.