Gov. Josh Stein on Monday outlined his education priorities ahead of this year’s short legislative session, including raising teacher compensation and adding additional school support personnel to meet students’ nonacademic needs.

“If we truly believe that kids are the future of this state, then we have to make the job of educating them more attractive,” he said to a room of education leaders at nonprofit annual meeting.

Stein highlighted education items in his $1.4 billion , released earlier in March, including 5.8% average raises for teachers, funds to restore master’s pay for more than 1,000 teachers, and a 2.5% raise for principals. Beginning teachers would receive a 13% pay raise in the plan.

The state legislature starts its short session in April. It has not passed a new comprehensive budget since 2023. Stein’s proposal says it includes “critical funding needs that cannot wait until next fiscal year.”

He said teacher pay raises are needed to raise student outcomes, pointing out that the state’s average teacher salary ranks 48th in the nation, with its per-pupil spending ranked at 47th in the nation. Those rankings from the Reason Foundation using data from 2023.

“Teachers drive student success,” Stein said Monday. “They are the No. 1 in-school factor of student achievement. We know this, but we have not passed a meaningful raise for our teachers in years.”

Schools also need more support personnel, he said, like social workers, nurses, psychologists, and nurses to meet students’ nonacademic needs.

Stein celebrated recent wins, including the state’s highest four-year , highest on AP exams, and (CTE) courses.

He praised the state’s move to train teachers in “the science of reading,” or a body of research on how students learn to read. All pre-K to fifth grade teachers completed , a professional development program funded by revamping its long-time efforts to improve reading proficiency.

He also highlighted , the , — a teacher apprenticeship program — and passed by legislators and signed by Stein last year.

Local innovations like a Perquimans County program exposing high schoolers to hands-on teaching experience, he said, have much to teach the state.

“We have to take inspiration from and match our teachers’ tenacity and our principals’ passion,” he said. “If we believe that our kids are our future, investing in kids is the best we can do.”

Stein pointed to the , which he created with  and , as an example of bipartisan partnership.

“Public education is not a Democratic policy,” Stein said. “Public education is not a Republican policy. It is a North Carolina policy. It affects every child in this state. There are so many areas like the cellphone ban, where we can and we must work together for the benefit of our public school kids.”

Stein also urged the General Assembly to reconsider its tax policy, adding that upcoming federal cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), have changed the state’s financial pressures.

“The No. 1 item on the chopping block when cuts have to made will be our K-12 schools,” Stein said. “So your voice matters in these debates. I urge you to use it.”

The Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) projected a budget gap between $2.5 and $4 billion between fiscal years 2027-28 and 2032-33 between the state’s revenues and the funding levels needed to continue its current services, adjusted for inflation and population growth. Current law has in place if revenue targets are met, including a 3.49% personal rate in 2027. The corporate rate is set to drop to 2% in 2027 and to 0% by 2030.

On Tuesday, state’s nonpartisan Consensus Forecasting Group (CFG) , showing that while there is an expected increase in the General Fund, there is a $360 million decrease in revenue expected in Fiscal Year (FY) 2026-27.

Stein said the loss of state revenue, along with federal funding cuts, will make the state unable to maintain its current funding levels, much less invest in new education efforts.

“Few ideas to enhance public education come with zero cost,” he said, estimating a $3.5 billion funding gap in the next two years. “Typically, they come with some cost, which is why, as a state, we must get our fiscal house in order.”

He said much of the state’s overall success, like its rankings as and , is the result of education investments “over the course of many decades.”

“We are bearing the fruit of an orchard that was planted a long time ago,” he said, “but today we risk hollowing out the institutions that have helped to create our success.”

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Child hunger leaders from across North Carolina — including representatives from school nutrition departments, food banks, churches, and state government — convened in Asheville this week for an annual conference hosted by the (CHI).

“​​In this room, we are a community united by one common value: Kids deserve access to healthy food, no matter what,” said Lou Anne Crumpler, director of the CHI.

During conference sessions, which spanned a variety of topics related to school meals, one topic loomed large: the ramifications of changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which was cut significantly by the , signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2025.

This year also marked the first time the conference was held in western North Carolina — aligned with a CHI project, funded by , that will examine child hunger and strategies to reduce it in the wake of .

“Hurricane Helene tested our infrastructure and our spirits,” said Jehan Benton-Clark, vice president of grantmaking and strategy at Dogwood Health Trust. “Western North Carolina has been navigating workforce shortages, market instability, and uncertainty in public funding. And yet, this region also represents what is possible when people show up for one another.”

Preparing for historic SNAP cuts

More than in North Carolina, including roughly 600,000 children, receive SNAP benefits each month. In addition to alleviating hunger, SNAP — particularly in rural communities, where food benefits play a crucial role in sustaining local grocery stores.

SNAP brings roughly $2.8 billion in federal funds annually to North Carolina, generating a $4.2 billion impact, according to a from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS).

“SNAP is the backbone of food access in rural North Carolina — SNAP is making sure that all of rural North Carolina has grocery stores that remain open,” said Kate Hanson, executive director of .

The , also called H.R. 1,�� reduced federal funding for SNAP by , which amounts to a roughly 20% cut —

Beginning in October 2026, the bill increases the share states have to pay toward SNAP’s administrative costs from 50% to 75%. According to the NC DHHS presentation, additional costs to cover this increase annually are $69 million for county governments and $16 million for the state.

Separately, beginning in October 2027, the bill requires states with a above 6% to cover a portion of food benefits. Historically, the federal government has covered 100% of SNAP food benefits. Based on North Carolina’s most recent SNAP payment error rate, the state’s cost share for SNAP benefits could total annually.

If the state and counties are unable to absorb these additional costs, SNAP could face reductions or end entirely, threatening food access for hundreds of thousands of households.

“I’ve been calling on the federal government to delay implementation of H.R. 1 until fiscal year 2030 so that we states and the counties have adequate time to reduce our error rates, and to hold states harmless for the errors that occurred during the chaotic period of the federal government shutdown,” said Gov. Josh Stein in a prerecorded statement. “We need the General Assembly to fully fund SNAP in the state budget because we cannot risk losing this program.”

During a keynote address, North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson discussed the temporary that occurred during the federal government shutdown in November. Following a brought by more than 20 states, including North Carolina, the Trump administration to be used for partial SNAP payments.

Jackson commended the work of staff at NC DHHS — who he called “unsung heroes” — for their work around the clock to ensure there was not a gap in SNAP benefits. In February, the North Carolina Department of Justice , the Dogwood Award, to the NC DHHS SNAP team who worked to “pull off this miracle,” Jackson said.

“Had it not been for them … food would not have been on the table for over a million people across the state,” said Jackson.

During a panel on SNAP, Hanson announced a new campaign called and urged attendees to share the importance of SNAP with their elected officials.

How cuts to SNAP impact access to school meals

Cuts to SNAP are directly tied to school meals because they impact one of the key ways students access free school meals: direct certification.

School districts regularly receive data from the state that allows them to automatically enroll students in free school meals based on their household’s participation in SNAP. As participation in SNAP declines, fewer students will be directly certified for free meals, and schools will have to return to collecting applications, which are often difficult to get families to fill out. Participating in SNAP also automatically enrolls children in , a grocery benefit available in the summer.

According to Rachel Findley, senior director of the Office of Nutrition at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI), more than 850,000 students were on SNAP in June 2025 — and that figure is already declining.

“That number will continue to decrease, and what that means is these students are no longer categorically eligible for free meals,” Findley said. “Now, our hardworking school nutrition central office staff are going to have to get free and reduced applications completed by families who haven’t completed a free and reduced application — perhaps the entire time that child has been in school.”

Declines in SNAP participation will also impact the (CEP), which allows eligible schools to serve all students free breakfast and lunch without collecting applications. That’s because CEP eligibility and reimbursements are calculated using the (ISP), a formula based on the number of students directly certified for free meals, such as by participating in SNAP or Medicaid.

As ISPs decline, some schools may lose CEP eligibility entirely, and others may no longer be able to afford to operate CEP — both of which would reduce access to free school meals.

When SNAP benefits lapsed in November, Findley said calls poured in from superintendents and community members across the state trying to figure out how school meals could help get more food to students. Findley’s answer was: “I can’t recreate this program to do things it was never regulated to do.” She described this as an “aha moment” where people realized: What do we do now?

“It’s going to be catastrophic for our students in North Carolina if SNAP benefits expire. It’s going to be catastrophic for school nutrition programs who rely on that categorical eligibility in order to operate meals at no cost for students,” said Findley.

Learn more about how cuts to SNAP are tied to school meals in .

Working to secure free school meals for all students

The coalition, launched with support from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, advocates for all North Carolina public school students to have access to breakfast and lunch at no cost to their families. The coalition is co-led by the , , , and CHI.

“Feeding kids isn’t controversial — it’s foundational for a full and a healthy life,” said Merry Davis, director of Health Through Food at the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation.

Advocates of free school meals for all, including ensuring access to meals that can support students’ learning and health, reducing stigma in the cafeteria, eliminating school meal debt, and more.

— California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, and Vermont — have passed legislation that provides free school meals to all students. Dozens of other states, including North Carolina, have introduced bills that would do the same.

In April 2025, a “” bill was introduced in the General Assembly, sponsored by four Republican House members. Although the bill did not move forward, it garnered support from both Democrats and Republicans, with more than 50 sponsors.

According to Marianne Weant, director of programs at the North Carolina Alliance for Health, support school meals for all.

During the conference, Chanel Jones, a teacher in the and 2025 Piedmont Triad Region Teacher of the Year, shared her perspective on the importance of school meals for all.

In her remarks, Jones said she cares about school meals for all students because she has seen firsthand how hunger impacts her students, including a lack of focus, irritability, or deciding to put their head down.

“Hunger is quiet, it is subtle. It is often invisible, and yet it changes everything about a child’s ability to fully show up in a classroom,” she said.

At Broadview Middle School, where Jones teaches, all students receive free breakfast and lunch.

“And I can say without hesitation that is how it should be for every student in North Carolina,” Jones said.

Feeding western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene

In September 2024, caused widespread destruction in western North Carolina. Two days after the storm, 25 of North Carolina’s 100 counties were .

MANNA FoodBank, which serves 16 western North Carolina counties and the Qualla Boundary, lost nearly everything in the storm, including both of its warehouses and all food, equipment, and computer systems.

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, Claire Neal, CEO of MANNA FoodBank, said they devised a plan to receive donations in the morning and distribute items in the afternoon. Without cell service, internet, or open roads, “we were really just kind of relying on the kindness and capacity of our local neighbors,” she said.

What came next was “the scariest moment” of her professional life when she arrived at the donation site in the morning and realized how little food would be available to distribute.

“But the truth is … people gave what they had. They pulled things out of their garages to give to their neighbors,” said Neal. “And then when the roads opened up, the rest of the country, and really the world, responded in amazing and beautiful ways.”

Another learning from the hurricane, Neal said, was realizing just how long recovery takes. The food bank only recently restored its freezer and cooler capacity — nearly 500 days after the storm — and is now beginning to rebuild its volunteer center and offices.

“I say all of that just to use MANNA as an example … many of our neighbors are still rebuilding,” said Neal. “It doesn’t happen overnight, but it is something that we can do together.”

Connecting students to locally grown food

Farm to school — which includes purchasing local food for school meals, educational activities related to agriculture and nutrition, and school gardening��— offers numerous benefits for both farmers and students.

For farmers, selling to school districts opens new institutional markets that can provide additional revenue and strengthen local economies. For students, eating local products in school meals and snacks can improve access to nutritious, high-quality food and increase interest in topics related to food systems and agriculture.

During a panel, Danielle Raucheisen, program director at the (ASAP), discussed the organization’s efforts to connect local farmers interested in selling to schools with school nutrition directors and child care programs that want to buy local products.

“One way we’re doing this is holding grower-buyer meetings at food hubs here in western North Carolina,” said Raucheisen. “Food hub staff, child care staff, and farmers from the community will learn more about each other and the different systems they all operate in.”

One of the farms ASAP works with is in Fairview. The farm offers grass-fed beef, pasture-raised pork, and pasture-raised chickens.

Virginia Hamilton, director of operations at Hickory Nut Gap Farms, said the farm supplies up to 8,000 pounds of ground beef to local schools each month. Located on 70 acres, the farm also frequently hosts groups of students for field trips and tours, allowing children from all backgrounds to “be a farm kid for a couple hours,” Hamilton said.

During the panel, Hamilton outlined three ways to support farm to school:

• Secure continuous funding for farm to school: To build momentum, Hamilton said farm to school efforts need continuous funding rather than being susceptible to the decisions of donors or politicians. “Every time we have to restart or retool something, it slows down the progress that we’ve made together,” she said.
• Support independently owned regional food infrastructure: “We can’t feed students if we can’t get the food to the schools,” said Hamilton. Infrastructure needed for large scale distribution of local food includes refrigeration, transportation, trucking, processing and slaughter facilities, and packing infrastructure.
• Advocate for farmland preservation: NC FarmLink estimates that the state will lose nearly of farmland to development by 2040. “Farm to school or farm to table just doesn’t actually work without the farm part. When we lose farmland, we can’t get it back,” said Hamilton.

Increasing access to summer meals in rural communities

When school is out for the summer, efforts to feed children don’t end. In 2025, 5.3 million summer meals were served across the state to children ages 18 and under, an increase from the 4.2 million meals served in summer 2024, CHI.

Historically, all summer meals had to be eaten on-site, such as at a park or a library. This can create barriers to accessing summer meals, particularly in rural communities, where children may not have transportation to reach meal sites.

Beginning in the summer of 2023, new provided a solution: Summer meals sponsors in low-income, rural areas are now allowed to provide meals that can be eaten off-site, also called non-congregate meals or .

“SUN Meals To-Go are a game changer,” said Tamara Baker, project and communications director at CHI, adding that serving SUN Meals To-Go also provides a way for school nutrition departments to strengthen their financial position by receiving additional federal reimbursements.

Participation in SUN Meals To-Go has grown rapidly. According to CHI, there were eight sponsors participating in summer 2023, 33 sponsors participating in summer 2024, and 43 sponsors participating in summer 2025.

Two of those sponsors — and — shared their experiences with SUN Meals To-Go during the conference.

Nicole Caudill, director of community meals for Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC, said implementing SUN Meals To-Go has resulted in rapid growth in the food bank’s summer meals efforts. In 2025, when the food bank increased SUN Meals To-Go operations, they served roughly 1,200 children per day through congregate meals, and another 1,000 children per day through SUN Meals To-Go — nearly doubling their reach.

“This really opens up doors for us to get meals into rural communities,” said Caudill, adding that more than 54,000 meals were served last year through SUN Meals To-Go alone.

Learn more about SUN Meals To-Go in Hickory City Schools in .

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Before the school day begins, hundreds of thousands of students across North Carolina eat school breakfast — in the cafeteria, in the classroom, from grab-and-go kiosks, and more.

In the , the most recent available data, more than 73 million school breakfasts were served to roughly 470,000 students across the state. The majority of them were provided for free.

that eating school breakfast is associated with a variety of positive outcomes for students, including improved and better .

“School breakfast offers a peace of mind to these students that do not get food at home,” said Keli McNeill, a parent in Richmond County, during a meeting ahead of . “They can come into school knowing, ‘I might be hungry right now, but in another 10 minutes, I’m not going to be hungry anymore, because I’m going to have food, and I’m going to be able to make it through my day.’ It’s about so much more than food.”

Yet traditional school breakfast approaches, which often require students to arrive before class begins and eat in the cafeteria, can limit access to these important meals.

To increase participation in school breakfast, districts across the state are implementing innovative breakfast models, including breakfast served in the classroom, grab-and-go kiosks, and second chance breakfast, often served after first period.

In 2024, then-Gov. Roy Cooper in NC Innovative School Breakfast Grants to help 42 school districts and charter schools implement innovative school breakfast models and expand student participation.

Districts are also increasingly offering free breakfast to all students under the federal (CEP), available to high-poverty schools.

Advocates in North Carolina, including the coalition, have called for school breakfast to be provided to all students at no cost. In March 2025, Gov. Josh Stein for all public school students in his state budget proposal.

Then, in April, a “” bill was introduced in the General Assembly, sponsored by four Republican House members. Although the bill did not move forward, it garnered support from both Democrats and Republicans, with more than 50 sponsors.

“If we really want to change our education system, one way is to start by giving every student a nice, nutritious start to the day,” said Tami Poland, principal of Swift Creek Elementary in Johnston County, during the School Meals for All NC meeting.

Innovative breakfast models increase participation in Mitchell County Schools

Heather Calhoun has worked in , located in the mountains of western North Carolina, for 27 years. Calhoun considers herself a big advocate for school breakfast and said she has seen the benefits that eating breakfast provides to students firsthand.

“We know hungry kids are not going to learn — they’re not going to do well on tests,” she said, adding that skipping breakfast can also lead to malnutrition and poor behavior.

Today, the roughly in Mitchell County Schools are served free breakfast and lunch through CEP. But according to Calhoun, the district offered free breakfast to all students even before CEP was in place. Soon after, participation in school meals increased as the stigma associated with identifying students by their free, reduced, or paid meals status was gone.

“That’s one of the things I think has really been great for our county and our students — making sure that they have a good breakfast every day,” she said.

The district has also implemented two innovative models to increase participation: breakfast in the classroom and second chance breakfast.

For K-8 students, a cart in the hallway allows them to pick up breakfast and eat it in their homeroom while morning announcements and other activities begin. Calhoun said these breakfast carts have been the most effective approach in increasing breakfast participation, and that students participate at much higher rates compared to serving breakfast in the cafeteria.

“If you say, ‘OK, come into the lunchroom and come through the line and get it,’ they don’t do it,” she said. “We tried that one time … and half the kids didn’t eat.”

For high school students, a second chance breakfast is provided in addition to traditional breakfast in the cafeteria. After the first class block, a cart circles around the hallways, offering a chance for students to eat who may have missed breakfast before the first bell.

“A lot of kids at the high school, they’re not going to get there 30 minutes before class, or they want to go hang out with their friends,” said Calhoun. “They don’t want to stop by the cafeteria.”

Students’ favorite breakfast items include chicken biscuits, sausage biscuits, and a cheese stick with yogurt or whole grain crackers.

Calhoun said she would like to serve more protein-rich and less grain-focused items, but that those products can often be more expensive, making it difficult to serve them within current federal reimbursement rates. For each free school breakfast served, school districts receive roughly , which has to cover the costs of food, labor, equipment, and more.

Even if an affordable item is identified, other barriers can stand in the way of sourcing new products. There may be manufacturing or procurement challenges, or the product might not be available in bulk, requiring more staff capacity to individually wrap each item before it goes on the breakfast cart.

“It’s like a Rubik’s Cube — I always say that about school nutrition,” said Calhoun. “It’s like that puzzle, where you have to fit all the pieces together.”

Free breakfast for all makes a difference at Dillard Academy

Located in Goldsboro, is a K-8 public charter school that opened in 1998 with the goal of providing more personalized instruction for local students. That’s according to Danielle Baptiste, the school’s executive director and daughter of the school’s founder, .

In addition to overseeing the day-to-day operations of Dillard Academy, Baptiste also serves as the school nutrition director, ensuring roughly have access to meals each day.

“We’re a very small school, and so you end up having to be that jack-of-all-trades,” she said.

Through CEP, all students receive free meals at Dillard Academy. When students get off of the bus, they have the opportunity to go into the cafeteria and eat, with about 60% of students participating in breakfast each morning. If students get dropped off late, breakfast service continues until 9 a.m.

“We really want to make sure that our students are fed and have that basic level of need met when they go into the classroom so they can maximize their instruction, their learning,” said Baptiste.

As a small charter school, Baptiste said being able to provide free meals to all students has provided multiple benefits. It serves as a draw for parents, who have the peace of mind that there will always been food available for their student. For the school’s small staff, it has reduced the administrative burden of providing meals, as they do not have to collect meal applications or verify eligibility for free or reduced-price meals.

“It’s super simple — every child with a lunch number gets a free lunch and a free breakfast and a free snack,” said Baptiste.

She has also seen a reduction in the stigma associated with participating in school meals, especially among older students.

“It’s not necessarily cool to eat in the cafeteria — but if they see something they really like, they can make that decision right there on the spot,” she said.

Baptiste said her mother’s decision to offer school breakfast and lunch from the very first day the charter school opened reflects a strong belief in the importance of meeting students’ basic needs.

“In education, we don’t always think about how important it is to make sure our students are well fed — and that really feeds their brain for the rest of the day,” said Baptiste.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

In the U.S., more than 9 million students school closures or canceled activities due to extreme weather during the 2024-25 school year. In western North Carolina, 76,000 students were affected by Tropical Storm Helene in 2024, with some missing up to 40 days of instruction due to flooding, power outages and damaged roads. That same year, Phoenix experienced of temperatures at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, disrupting school activities and creating a on learning.

Extreme and prolonged conditions like these have repercussions that build over time. Repeated closures and altered schedules make it harder for students to stay on track academically and create ongoing stress for both children and caregivers.

Such disturbances have led to learning loss, as reflected in , and the consequences often hit students already experiencing the hardest. As an on environmental injustice highlights, people of color are disproportionately more likely to live in flood-prone areas and attend under-resourced schools, with outdated HVAC systems that are vulnerable to extreme heat. These challenges, combined with unstable housing, poorer health care and limited access to reliable transportation, make it significantly harder for families and students to regain stability when daily routines are knocked off kilter.

As such disasters become more frequent, intense and unpredictable, schools and communities are going to have to grapple with these inevitable realities. Reducing carbon footprints and improving climate education are key strategies for adaptation.

For example, the Maryland Association of Boards of Education declared that in order to provide schools that are safe, functional and fair for all students, a plan should be put in place. The state also has an that brings together state and federal agencies, nonprofits and community-based youth groups to develop conservation‑focused recommendations, help teachers meet environmental literacy standards and aid districts in sustainability efforts.

New Jersey instituted and formed the to prepare public school teachers to integrate climate education across grade levels and content areas. In 2024, Colorado’s legislature approved a .

Other states, including California, Connecticut, Maine, Illinois, Oregon and Washington, have passed legislation promoting . Embedding eco-education across subjects and grade levels can prepare young people to embrace environmental stewardship. Project-based approaches like environmental monitoring, design challenges and student energy audits can deepen learning while improving campus conditions. In addition, taking deliberate steps to prepare learners for green or clean energy jobs and helping them feel confident in science and math can help ensure every student is adequately prepared for future economies.

These approaches align with KnowledgeWorks’ latest 10-year forecast, , which looks ahead at how schools and learning are likely to change over the next decade. The report asks policymakers and district leaders to start planning now for a future of education where learning increasingly happens outside physical classrooms and decisions and resources are managed with the understanding that worsening environmental conditions will continue to shape school operations and learning experiences.

Districts around the U.S. have been devising and establishing environmental sustainability offices, and some teachers unions have demanded that their districts establish or update them.

These plans outline commitments and connect resources and initiatives that can help insulate schools and districts from the ill effects of weather-related events. This might include installing solar panels and battery storage to keep schools open during power outages or ensuring that students have access to laptops and the internet for remote learning during closures. Training counselors and educators to address climate-related stress and the impacts of disruption and displacement on students can be another powerful tactic.

Longer term, as the forecast highlights, schools might consider flexible, year-round calendars that allow for quick adjustments during climate disruptions. Communities could partner with libraries, recreation centers and businesses to create learning hubs during emergencies in return for tax breaks or other incentives.

Alternatively, states might put in place climate readiness certifications that would require schools, especially new and renovated buildings, to meet resilience standards for infrastructure, energy systems and emergency protocols.

In the meantime, resources are available to help state and district leaders take concrete steps toward addressing the current and future impacts of climate change and related events.

Among them, a by Aspen Institute’s This Is Planet Ed helps schools and districts consider how to adapt to climate change, mitigate its impacts, educate young people about successful green economies and advance equity by prioritizing and involving communities that are most impacted.

In addition, UNESCO’s provides international guidelines for creating environmentally friendly learning environments that reduce waste, save energy and use sustainable materials.

Schools and districts play a central role in community stability and opportunity. Designing facilities, operations and instruction that can withstand extreme weather, adapt to changing environmental conditions and recover quickly when disasters strike will be critical. In doing this work, the people and neighborhoods that face the greatest challenges should be asked where the most acute problems show up and what support would make the biggest difference when daily life is interrupted.

With coordinated support from state and regional partners, districts can move from reactive responses to proactive systems: stronger buildings, adaptive calendars, clean energy infrastructure, climate-ready teaching and shared community resources.

Together, these steps can help schools meet immediate challenges while laying the groundwork for long-term sustainability. By acting now, education leaders can build a more resilient future of learning for every student.

Jeremiah-Anthony Righteous-Rogers, senior manager of strategic foresight at KnowledgeWorks and a former community organizer and program assistant in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., also contributed to this essay.

Students across the country will soon be able to receive Workforce Pell Grants to use toward tuition and fees for certain short-term workforce training programs.

Established by the in 2025, Workforce Pell Grants expand traditional to programs that are between 8-15 weeks, lead to a high-skill, high-wage, or in-demand job, result in a recognized postsecondary credential, and articulate credit into a certificate or degree program, among other requirements.

In December, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) held a process to develop new rules for Workforce Pell Grants. In one week, negotiators reached an agreement on , which will be used as the basis of DOE’s forthcoming consensus rule. That consensus rule will be open to public comment before a final rule is published.

In the meantime, states are working to identify potentially eligible programs ahead of Workforce Pell’s anticipated launch on July 1, 2026. States play a critical role in implementing Workforce Pell — under the law and proposed regulations, governors must approve any eligible program before a federal approval process takes place.

However, during a Feb. 11 meeting of the , Jeff Cox, president of the N.C. Community College System, expressed caution about the number of programs that may ultimately qualify for Workforce Pell in the state due to the program’s federally-established . Eligible programs must demonstrate a 70% completion rate, a 70% job placement rate within 180 days, and a positive return on investment, demonstrated through a value-added .

“Just out of these initial screens — the number of hours and then the job placement and the completion rates — I think only about 4% or so of our overall short-term credential programs are going to qualify,” Cox said.

The status of Workforce Pell in North Carolina

During its February meeting, the council heard an update on the status of Workforce Pell Grant implementation in North Carolina from Andrea DeSantis, assistant secretary for workforce solutions at the N.C. Department of Commerce.

DeSantis opened with an overview of Workforce Pell Grants, highlighting that they provide a new opportunity to quickly move students into the workforce through short-term training programs, but that eligible programs must meet high standards.

“This is really a huge departure from the way that federal funding happens right now and the accountability measures for institutions,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis then outlined the federal timeline for Workforce Pell, noting that she participated as an alternate negotiator during DOE’ negotiated rulemaking process in December. DOE’s goal is to have a final rule by the spring, and according to , the program should launch on July 1.

“That timeline is going to move quick, and that means us as states, we have to move quickly too,” DeSantis said. “What will that mean in July? While we have not heard official dates from the Department of Ed, it means that the Department of Ed intends to be able to start reviewing applications from institutions that have programs that were approved at the state level.”

As states consider potentially eligible programs, DeSantis said that it is not the federal government’s expectation that all short-term training programs will be eligible for Workforce Pell. Instead, she said, “states should take this as an opportunity to say, ‘What are the needs in communities, and what programs are really essential for us to improve and fund?’”

DeSantis then provided an update on where North Carolina stands in Workforce Pell implementation. Since November 2025, staff from the Governor’s Office, Department of Commerce, and higher education agencies have worked with , a national consulting firm, to develop the state’s Workforce Pell approach.

This includes:

• Defining what a high-wage, high-skill, or in-demand job is: DeSantis said these definitions will build off assets from the within the N.C. Department of Commerce. To define in-demand jobs, DeSantis said LEAD has pulled a list of occupations that are in-demand at both the state and local levels. She added that high-skill jobs are those that require a license or additional postsecondary credential, and that no definition has been determined yet for what qualifies as a high-wage job. Importantly, to be eligible for Workforce Pell, a program must lead to a job that meets at least one of these three criteria. For example, a job that is in-demand but low-wage could still be eligible.
• Defining stackability and portability: These are two additional federal requirements for Workforce Pell — programs must result in a recognized credential, and they must articulate credit into a related certificate or degree program.
• Developing an application process: DeSantis said the group will also develop an application process that accounts for the data that a program must report and the high standards it must meet to qualify for Workforce Pell. “How do we leverage existing assets within the Department of Commerce and our as a potential pathway for institutions to apply?” DeSantis said.
• Determining how Workforce Pell can be leveraged for apprenticeships: DeSantis said that Workforce Pell can be used to cover portions of the cost of related instruction for a Reegistered Apprenticeship Program, which is a component of the policy the group is working on.

In April, the state hopes to have a draft policy and application for Workforce Pell that would be available for public comment. On May 13, the , the state’s workforce development board, would review the policy and application.

“Assuming that the federal level has put out their final guidance, we would then plan to have an application available sometime in late May,” said DeSantis. “This would give us enough time to approve initial applications before the July deadline.”

DeSantis also noted that the N.C. Community College System (NCCCS) has already published an initial , which is part of the system’s . This list includes short-term workforce courses and credentials that meet the time limits required by Workforce Pell — but not all of those programs will necessarily meet the grant’s additional eligibility requirements.

“Institutions have received individualized data to see, ‘OK, which programs do we offer at our own institutions — not just across the state — that we think could be eligible for Workforce Pell,’ based on the hour requirements, as well as that completion and job placement data, which is going to be really important,” said DeSantis.

Although all Workforce Pell programs must have existed in their current format for at least one year, DeSantis said this is an opportunity for community colleges to have conversations with employers and consider what new programs or adjustments to current programs may be needed to meet workforce needs in the coming years.

“This is expected to be a slow start,” DeSantis said of Workforce Pell’s launch. “This is not intended to approve every program, but to really be about intentional design at the state and local level.”

Cox echoed that sentiment, saying he is “a little bit underwhelmed” by the number of programs that may qualify for Workforce Pell.

“I’m excited about it, but I also want to inject a little bit of caution around the level of impact we’re going to have right out of the gate,” he said.

Updates on the council’s work

In addition to hearing this update on Workforce Pell, the council also reflected on its work in 2025 and discussed other key efforts that will help advance its goals.

In June 2025, the council outlining the state’s goals for workforce development, which are separated into four objectives: increasing attainment, expanding work-based education, focusing on key sectors, and highlighting workforce programs through a public outreach campaign. In December, the council released a that outlines 30 strategies to advance those goals.

Then, in January, the council’s co-chairs joined Gov. Josh Stein at an event to announce the state’s ranking as first for workforce development by .

“We now stand at a pivotal moment where strategy development is transitioning into action,” said N.C. Secretary of Commerce Lee Lilley, who is also a council co-chair, at the February meeting. “As we move forward today, our focus shifts toward implementation, accountability, and metrics, translating these strategies into meaningful outcomes for North Carolina’s workforce.”

The council heard a short presentation on how the relates to the work of the council.

Annie Izod, executive director of the NCWorks Commission, shared that as of February, the council and NCWorks Commission had aligned each entities’ four committees. In December 2026, the council committees will sunset, and the NCWorks Commission will continue to monitor progress toward the state’s workforce development goals.

New funding for youth apprenticeships

On Feb. 10, Stein announced that he is directing discretionary funds allotted through the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) to to expand youth apprenticeships.

According to a , NC Career Launch “helps businesses develop registered apprenticeship programs for students beginning in grades 11 and 12 in high-demand sectors like child care, health care, skilled trades, and advanced manufacturing.”

This investment is connected to one of the council’s : to double the number of apprentices in the state, including both registered apprenticeships and apprenticeships. According to , youth apprenticeships can begin as early as 16 and are available in more than 1,200 occupations.

During the council’s February meeting, Kindl Detar, policy adviser to Stein, said youth apprenticeships allow employers to grow local talent early before students may drop out of the , and they allow students to earn and learn with pathways to career opportunities in their local communities.

According to Detar, the first year of the investment will focus on expanding existing youth apprenticeship programs that have wait lists and on expanding youth apprenticeships in the western part of the state as it continues to recover from .

“We know that making these apprenticeships work will require engagement from our employers,” said Detar. “In his announcement yesterday, the governor had a special call-out to employers to think about how these models of youth apprenticeships … can be beneficial to them, to not only provide opportunity, but to create that local workforce that they need.”

NCCareers.org sees record number of users

First launched in July 2020, is the state’s career information system. It aggregates key information on jobs, wages, and pathways, providing career exploration tools to help North Carolinians on their education-to-workforce journey.

During the council’s meeting, Jamie Vaughn, senior analyst for market intelligence at the North Carolina Department of Commerce, shared that the website had 1 million users in the last 12 months — representing 95% growth from the previous year.

The website has information on wages and demand across more than 800 occupations that can be sorted by 16 sub-state regions. According to Vaughn, more than half of school districts in the state are to help meet the that all middle and high school students complete a career development plan.

Vaughn also previewed new features that will be added to the website, including business listings of local companies that may hire employees in specific occupations, and information to help high school students better understand what CTE courses are available at their school that will lead to CTE pathways.

Cecilia Holden, president and CEO of , said that one component of myfutureNC’s proposed Workforce Act of 2026 for the legislative short session is $1.5 million for NCCareers.org, which would equate to $1.50 per user based on 1 million annual users.

For more information on NCCareers.org, see this

The council’s next meeting will be held on May 13 from 10 to 11:30 a.m.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

Reports of crime and violence in North Carolina public schools decreased during the 2024-25 school year for the second consecutive year, according to an presented to the State Board of Education this week.

The report — which is required by state law and tracks discipline, alternative learning, and dropouts across the state — “shows strong levels of safety” in North Carolina public schools, Nearly 80% of schools had five or fewer acts of reportable criminal offenses last year, the release said, and “only 9,966 students or approximately 0.66%, committed a reportable offense.”

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“This data, I think, certainly shows that there’s still work to be done to address certain instances of reportable criminal offenses,” Superintendent Mo Green said during the Board’s Wednesday meeting. “But it is good to know that the vast majority of our schools experience minimal such acts, and that more than 99% of our public school students are not committing these acts.”

“It’s also encouraging to see that we have a downward trend on these offenses and also declines in suspensions, alternative placements, and dropouts,” Green said. “Because we also know how critical it is to be in school to have student success.”

On Wednesday, DPI staff emphasized that context is crucial when discussing the report — particularly its data on school crimes and violence. When a topic is emotionally charged, like school safety, it can be easy to rely on anecdotes rather than data, said Dr. Michael Maher, DPI’s chief accountability officer. While the data shows most North Carolina schools are safe — and getting safer — Maher said, “any act of violence in a school is unacceptable.”

“Student safety is nonnegotiable, and nothing in this data or presentation is intended to minimize harm or dismiss legitimate concerns,” he said. “The purpose of this report is to provide information, analysis, and develop some recommendations for improvement.”

During the 2024-25 school year, there were 11,470 total reported acts of violent and reportable crimes committed by students (11,429) and non-students (41). This reflects a 6.1% decrease in the number of reportable acts compared to the 2023-24 school year (12,212), the presentation says, and a 8.2% decrease in the rate of acts per 1,000 students. Generally, the rate of acts is a more accurate way to make a comparison to prior years, Maher said, as it adjusts for the size of the group.

The report tracks 16 reportable acts, nine of which are considered dangerous and violent:

• Assault involving the use of a weapon
• Assault resulting in serious bodily injury
• Homicide
• Kidnapping
• Rape
• Robbery with a dangerous weapon
• Sexual assault/battery
• Sexual offense
• Taking indecent liberties with a minor

Only 2.6% of reported acts in 2024-25 were violent, the report shows. The vast majority of acts were possession offenses, particularly related to controlled substances (62%), which “includes Marijuana, Heroin, LSD, Methamphetamine, Cocaine, or any other drug listed in Schedules I-VI of the North Carolina Controlled Substances Act” ().

“While every incident matters, the data show that severe violence is rare, and the most common challenges schools are managing are behavioral and substance related, not widespread physical harm,” Maher said. “So any policy or procedure or programmatic recommendation we make should be proportional to that evidence.”

Maher also said that current data should not be compared to data before and during the COVID-19 pandemic without context. The long-term data tables in the report include data from 2019-21, when students were not at school in-person for long stretches of time. Those years “show a significant decline in the number of incidents and resulting actions,” the presentation says.

“While this data is reliable and valid, it is a unique data set that does not align with pre- or post-pandemic data,” per the presentation. “Individuals should exercise caution when making comparisons between pre-pandemic and post-pandemic data as there have been changes to the school context, including increased remote learning.”

Both reported crimes and suspensions were higher in 2024-25 than before the pandemic.

This year, the report was renamed to “Annual Report: Discipline, Alternative Learning, and Dropout.” Previously, it was called the consolidated data report, “which doesn’t really tell you anything,” Maher said.

In addition to data on school crime and violence, the report also includes data on reassignments for disciplinary reasons, suspensions and expulsions, alternative learning, dropouts, and corporal punishment. In 2024-25, there were zero reported cases of corporal punishment in North Carolina public schools, according to the presentation, marking the seventh consecutive year of zero cases.

You can view DPI’s full presentation , and the 165-page report to the General Assembly . You can also watch DPI’s presentation of the data to the Board , starting at 3:29:00.

Data trends and subgroup data

In addition to aggregated data across the state’s schools, the report also includes subgroup data in each category, including the number count and rate per 1,000 students by gender, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability, and whether or not the student is an English Learner.

Each category also includes data on the rates among elementary, middle, and high school grade levels. At the end of DPI’s presentation, Maher shared overall data trends with the Board regarding such subgroup data.

Students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades have higher rates than most other grade levels in suspensions, Maher said, including in-school, short-, and long-term suspensions. At the same time, he said ninth grade “remains the primary risk point,” with higher rates or numbers of in-school suspension, long-term suspension, dropouts, and acts of crime and violence.

Across the board, Maher said the subgroups with the highest number count and rates included students who are male, Black, two or more races, economically disadvantaged, or have disabilities.

Board member Reginald Kenan said it was important for people to understand this data correctly, rather than to reinforce stereotypes.

“This report, if it’s not understood, will make someone think that certain races, certain students, are problem makers and can’t get educated because certain students are in the classroom,” Kenan said. “The data is great when you understand it.”

Maher noted, particularly when it comes to violent and reportable crime in schools, that “these are descriptive patterns … not causal explanations.”

“The same pattern shows up across multiple education outcomes, including attendance, course and test performance, and dropouts — not just discipline,” Maher said. “So that tells us that discipline is not a standalone issue. Effective solutions need to connect attendance, behavior, academic support, and student services.”

Maher also noted that subgroups with the highest rates of reportable acts also saw rate decreases in the last two years, in many cases in the double digits. This was true for many subgroups across most other categories in the report as well.

“So this is a picture of both persistent disparities, but also meaningful progress,” Maher said.

In addition to decreases in rates among many student subgroups, there were also decreases in total reports of crime, suspensions (in-school and short- and long-term), the high school dropout rate, and alternative learning placements.

Finally, Maher noted that across all reported categories, a relatively small number of students were involved.

“Less than 13% of the preschool through grade 13 student population received any type of reportable disciplinary consequence (in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, alternative placement for disciplinary reasons, expulsion) for inappropriate behavior,” the presentation says.

In-school suspensions and alternative learning

In the report, reassignments refer to cases of in-school suspension and alternative learning placements for disciplinary reasons.

Less than 8.1% of the student population received one or more in-school suspensions, the report said, with 241,492 in-school suspensions (ISS) of a half-day or more to 124,334 students.

That reflects a 8.7% reduction in the total number of ISS compared to 2023-24, the presentation says, and a 10.8% reduction in the rate per 1,000 students.

Nearly 81% of public school units (which includes school districts, charter, and lab schools) had ISS rates below the state rate, according to Dr. Rob Dietrich, DPI’s senior director of enterprise data and reporting.

Five student subgroups were above the state event rate of 156.53 ISSs per 1,000 students: males, Black students, students who are two or more races, economically disadvantaged students, and students with disabilities. National and state research has long shown that compared to those of white students for the same infractions.

As was the case for reports of crime, rates of ISS decreased over the last two years among student subgroups, Dietrich said.

“You want to see these numbers continue to decrease,” he said.

In the past, DPI staff and Board members have advocated for more culturally responsive training for teachers, along with a need to make less subjective, more data-informed decisions about discipline.

On Wednesday, Kenan said while he is glad to see the decrease in discipline rates among student subgroups, it’s important to know how and why things improved — so that practices that worked can be replicated to continue to reduce discipline inequities.

Vice Chair Alan Duncan added that the report is missing information on the disparity in types of discipline for the same offenses between student groups. Maher and Dietrich said it was “on their list” for future reporting.

“It’s been a long-term issue in schools around the country, and although we are better than some states, we still have it as an issue very much,” Duncan said of school discipline disparities.

There were 2,994 alternative learning placements as a disciplinary action in 2024-25, which reflects a 22.6% decrease in the rate of placements compared to the previous school year.

Nearly 84% of districts and charter schools reported zero alternative learning placements for disciplinary reasons, per the report.

Four out of the five student subgroups above the state average for alternative learning placements saw decreases in the rate of placements over the last two years: Black students, students with disabilities, male students, and economically disadvantaged students.

Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students saw a 130.7% and 40.7% increase in placements over the last two years, respectively.

“You look at that number and you think, ‘That number’s awful big,’” Dietrich said. “But when you have a small population, when you have any movement in either direction, like you do here with Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders … any number up or down is going to have a pretty big size effect on the rate.”

The report also includes data on alternative learning program enrollment for all students, not just students placed in alternative learning for disciplinary reasons.

There were 8,741 student enrollments in alternative learning programs in 2024-25, which decreased by more than 13% last year.

While the top two reasons for placement were instead of long-term suspension (34%) and for chronic misbehavior (28.5%), 11.4% of placements were because of student or parent choice.

Suspensions and expulsions

Short-term and long-term suspensions also decreased in 2024-25 when compared to the previous two academic years.

There were 233,877 short-term suspensions reported, for a rate of roughly 145 short-term suspensions per 1,000 students. That is a 10.6% decrease in the rate from 2023-24 and a 11.8% decrease in the rate from 2022-23.

Approximately 73% of suspensions were for one to three days in length, with one-day suspensions being the most frequent.

There were 684 long-term suspensions reported, for a rate of roughly 44 long-term suspensions per 1,000 students. That is a a 8.4% decrease in the rate from 2023-24 and a 5.8% decrease in the rate from 2022-23.

According to the presentation, 28,504 days of school were missed due to long-term suspensions.

While student subgroups with the highest rates saw a decrease in the rate of short-term suspensions, some subgroups saw increases in rates of long-term suspensions.

In addition to the 684 long-term suspensions, 2,806 students were enrolled in alternative learning programs instead of long-term suspension. Therefore, long-term removals, including suspensions and alternative learning placements, totaled 3,588 removals — a 10.3% increase from the previous school year.

Finally, there were 34 expulsions in 2024-25, up four from the prior school year.

“Even though there is a slight increase, expulsions are still extremely rare,” the DPI presentation says.

Dropout rates

Dropout rates in North Carolina continue to decline, according to the report.

There were a total of 10,478 students in grades 1-13 who dropped out in 2024-25, with 76.5% of those students dropping out in grades 9-13.

The top three dropout reasons were attendance (36.4%), unknown (31%), and a student’s school status being unknown after moving (12.9%).

Dropouts increased at the elementary and middle grade levels, and decreased at the high school level — though ninth grade remains the grade with the largest percentage of dropouts.

DPI began implementing a new (NCSIS) in 2024-25, Dietrich said. The report includes data from both PowerSchool and NCSIS powered by Infinite Campus.

Dietrich said the new system has helped districts run their dropouts against the entire state to locate students who moved within the state.

“What that allowed them to do is get more accurate reporting on where students ended up or did not end up,” he said. “So I think that helps clarify the records for them and account for some of those increases.”

Recommendations

New this year, the report — which is received by the General Assembly — also includes recommendations.

The report includes three recommendations:

• Establish a targeted middle-to-high school transition initiative for grades 6-9. The initiative would prioritize tiered behavioral and academic interventions, the presentation says, and is expected to identify at-risk students earlier and reduce reliance on exclusionary discipline.
• Expand annual reporting to included advanced analyses and continuous monitoring. The presentation says this will provide “stronger alignment between data, prevention strategies, and student support efforts.”
• Continue training for public school units on discipline, alternative learning, and dropout data. Such training will help ensure “discipline decisions are made in a consistent and defensible way, using shared standards so actions are fair, clearly documented, and meaningful for follow-up and intervention,” the presentation says.

Maher said DPI would like to establish a work group that, among other things, would identify “bright spot schools” whose best practices could be replicated at schools with similar demographics.

Importantly, Maher said such best practices should focus on student support, not discipline or remediation. Moving forward, he said schools should make data-informed decisions to continue supporting students and fostering safe learning environments.

“Progress is real, and policy should be proportional to the evidence,” Maher said.

This was originally published on .

was originally reported by Jessica Kutz of . .

When Hurricane Helene swept through Kelsey Crabtree’s small hometown of Black Mountain, North Carolina, two years ago, its fierce winds uprooted a large tree that landed on the roof of her house, jolting her and her husband awake. She went into the living room and noticed a huge crack where water had started to pour in. The couple grabbed their two sons, dragged a spare mattress to their laundry room and sheltered there overnight.

Eventually, Crabtree and her family made their way to her mother-in-law’s home in Chattanooga, Tennessee. They later moved into an Airbnb, where they stayed for nearly a year. The months after the storm were a blur, she said — lots of phone calls with insurance and hands-on work to fix their home, and all of that while scrambling to care for the boys, who were two and five at the time.

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“We needed time to be childfree so we could work. We needed to be bringing money in so we could have our house back in order,” Crabtree, who works as a therapist, said. “The limited child care was really making it challenging. It was limiting my ability to see clients.”

So she got in contact with Silke Knebel.

A single mom, Knebel founded the National Emergency Child Care Network a few months earlier to help other mothers who might need child care in an emergency. What constitutes an emergency is broadly defined in Knebel’s mind: It could be a disaster like Helene, It could be snowstorms, like the one that brought massive damage to a big slice of the northeast, or just the need for a few hours to recharge after a particularly stressful day.

In the last decade, weather and climate-related disasters have caused damages worth over $200 billion and affected the availability of child care in the long and short term. Hurricane Harvey in 2017 damaged over 650 child care centers, permanently closing 52 facilities. The Maui wildfire in 2023 destroyed four of the nine child care programs that were available in the city of Lahaina. Last year, the Los Angeles wildfires affected over 500 child care providers, with Altadena losing 60% of its child care centers in the tragedy.

Knebel’s desire to help others when a disaster strikes comes from her own experience as a single mom. In kindergarten, her eldest son was diagnosed with a mental health condition known as “conduct disorder,” which manifests as aggressive and behavioral issues.It soaked up a lot of Knebel’s emotional and physical energy. “I feel for other moms, because I had weekends where I cried all day and I needed that five or six hours of [care] from just somebody showing up at my door,” she said.

Her nonprofit is designed to do exactly that — deploy to families in a crisis. The organization is staffed by volunteers who have undergone extensive background checks and are trained in trauma-informed care — “We don’t bring on 16-year-old Care.com babysitters,” Knebel said. The volunteers are typically deployed in pairs to families in need, at no cost.�� Many of them are retired teachers, pediatricians, social workers, and mothers and grandmothers who simply want to help.

For Crabtree, they were a godsend. “The kids loved the people who came out and played with them,” she said. They would show up and have different games and toys and animal crackers and the kids were just so excited.”

In the weeks and months after Hurricane Helene, Knebel connected over 50 families like Crabtree’s with child care volunteers. One mother had a sick and disabled husband at home�� and when the storm hit, she was left to figure out how to do basic things like find water while taking care of her children and partner. Another, a mother of four, was worried that if she didn’t return to work soon, she wouldn’t be able to pay rent, but her child care center had been closed due to the storm. Then there was the family whose nanny’s house was destroyed in the hurricane. Sometimes, the mothers who called — the callers were almost always moms —�� were just exhausted or in desperate need of a few hours away from their kids to sort through the piles of paperwork, to call insurance adjustors, to figure out how to rebuild.

The first person to call Knebel’s child care emergency hotline was, however, the manager of a local bank. One of his employees was struggling to find child care weeks after the storm. Employers “try to be accommodating and compassionate,” she said. “But after a while, they’re like, ‘Okay, you need to come to work.’ And that’s when the real burden and stress hits families, because the child care is still not open.”

And it wasn’t the only employer she helped out. United Way of Asheville, an organization that provides disaster relief, requested volunteers to staff a pop-up child care for their employees. Also, an area school requested help for 40 teachers who all needed care for their own kids.

At the same time that parents were struggling to find care, some 148 child care centers and home-based providers had been damaged by Helene — and no one knew how or when they would reopen.

The barriers to getting child care back up and running after a disaster are immense, says Susan Butler-Staub, a senior vice president at Child Care Aware of America, an advocacy organization. “One of the biggest issues is finding a suitable environment,” she said. “If you’re a home-based provider and your home has been flooded or your home is gone, then can you find a temporary place that meets regulation?”

If a provider is able to stay in their location, there’s usually a long list of issues they have to deal with first. “With a flood, you’re going to be dealing with mold in the walls,” she said. In western North Carolina, where Helene hit, “they are still dealing with water quality issues, so you have to filter the water before you can give it to children.”

But even when facilities recover, paying for child care can become too much for families. Crabtree, who utilized child care volunteers mostly to assist while she rebuilt her house, said she could only afford to pay for child care when her extended family helped cover the cost.

A few months after Hurricane Helene, Knebel was faced with another call to action: Catastrophic wildfires were sweeping through Los Angeles and families would need help in the aftermath

Knebel’s organization promptly recruited and trained around 70 volunteers and connected with mothers like Briana Pozner, who had a 2-year-old and went into early labor with twins after the fires. While Pozner’s house wasn’t destroyed by the fire, it was contaminated with lead and other heavy metals, forcing the family to move out for a few months.

Pozner and her family had already been preparing for how life would change with twins before the fires struck. She had recently enrolled her son in preschool — but then the preschool burned down. “It was like, OK, we’ve got to figure out how to get stability and figure out our son’s school.”

In Los Angeles, the impact of the wildfires on child care was devastating. Cindy Esquivel, program manager at the Low Income Investment Fund, a nonprofit that provided small grants to child care providers recovering from the wildfires, said that many home-based providers were still struggling to reopen. In some cases, they lost their homes and their businesses in one fell swoop.

Finding the money for them to rebuild has been difficult. Of the 136 grantees that Esquivel surveyed after the disaster, 40% did not have insurance. Many home-based providers also rent their homes and in the aftermath, rents skyrocketed in the region, making it difficult to find a suitable and affordable location.

Private child care providers do not qualify for FEMA funding. They can apply to the Small Business Administration for low- interest loans, but the process for approval is long and bureaucratic. Instead, a lot of funding comes from foundations and grant-making organizations. States have also chipped in, but the amount available varies by state and is usually a drop in the bucket compared to need, say experts. It’s an industry that, in the best of times, is already underfunded and operating at capacity.

A friend who had been volunteering with Knebel’s organization suggested that Pozner reach out and ask for assistance. Once the family was able to return home, “We had to get the whole house back in order with these little babies that I was breastfeeding,” she said. The volunteers watched her newborns while Pozner and her husband unpacked and organized.

Her son’s preschool eventually reopened, but it is now in its third location. Similar to North Carolina, it has been challenging for child care facilities and schools to find new homes.

Knebel is only set up to offer help in California and North Carolina because that’s where she has volunteers. She plans to expand to other disaster prone states like Florida and Texas but needs to raise more funding to make that a reality. In the meantime, however, she gets calls from all over the country, for women experiencing all sorts of challenges. A few weeks ago, she heard from a woman in a domestic violence shelter who needed someone to watch her two children for a few hours. She has also fielded several calls from women at hospitals who need someone to watch their kids while they undergo surgery. Once, a grandmother whose daughter had just been incarcerated called, in need of someone to help watch her grandkids.

Knebel wishes she could help everyone. “It isn’t really just disasters. It’s school shootings, divorces, it’s a medical crisis, just experiencing a car accident,” she said.

Lately, she’s wondered how she can tap into the network of volunteers her organization trained in Los Angeles to help families who are afraid to send their kids to school because of ICE raids. In the last few days, she’s been emailing volunteers about the potential need for deployments if child care and schools closed in North Carolina, one of the states hit hard by the weekend’s winter storm.

“We just want to be there when children and parents need us,” she said. “Especially now, when things are getting so doom and gloom.”

A new Department of Public Instruction (DPI) says that 100% of traditional public school districts currently have a 1-to-1 digital device-to-student ratio, though many districts are struggling to replace old or damaged devices due to a lack of funding.

Dr. Ashley McBride, a digital learning initiative consultant at DPI, the Statewide Trends in Student Digital Learning Access report at the State Board of Education meeting on Wednesday.

The compiles data on students’ access to digital devices in and out of school, as well as their out-of-school internet access, from 115 school districts and 239 charter, lab, and regional schools. Among those 239 nontraditional schools, 84% had a 1-to-1 digital device-to-student ratio.

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The report says that in total, these public school units had 1,190,045 digital devices available for students in 2024-25. Chrome devices make up 90.3% of this fleet; 8.7% were Windows devices, and Apple devices made up 1%.

Students can take less than half of these devices home, as 56% of them must stay on school campuses.

“Together, these findings demonstrate that North Carolina continues to rely heavily on school-issued, portable devices to support both in-school instruction and extended learning opportunities beyond the school day,” the report says.

The also included findings from a survey on out-of-school devices with responses from families representing 55,082 students.

In this sample, 42% of families said their student uses a school-provided device at home, while a third said their student uses a device owned by the family. Around one in five families reported that their student has access to both family-owned and school-provided devices at home. However, 4% of families reported their student does not have access to a digital device at home.

Families who did not have devices at home said they were too expensive, they chose not to purchase one, or the devices they owned were broken, damaged, or outdated, according to the report.

A survey with 36,365 respondent families found that 93% had consistent and adequate internet access for their students at home. Families with limited or no access to the internet at home said that was due to high costs or the internet connection not being dependable.

Still, those families described several alternatives they use to ensure their students can access the internet, including using the internet at public libraries, hot spots, other people’s homes, school parking lots, among other options.

“My rural county, still one third of it, does not have internet capability. And after Helene, many parts of our community do not have Wi-Fi coverage, nor do they have cell coverage. That’s typical in the western part of the state,” said Board member John Blackburn, who represents the state’s Northwest region. “I just want to remind everybody that there are still points of darkness in the state of North Carolina.”

Beckie Spears, , said that her rural elementary school had one Chromebook cart per grade level prior to 2020. Now, there’s one in every classroom, she said, but the devices are aging and the district doesn’t “have any ways to replace them.”

“The reality is we have stretched every resource as far as we can, and in Tier 1 counties and Tier 2 counties where local funds are not accessible, this is a real and urgent problem that needs attention from our legislators,” Spears said.

The report says that these findings highlight the importance of school-provided digital devices for students. But since pandemic-era funding from the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) and the Emergency Connectivity Funds (ECF) has ended, many schools are struggling to sustain student device programs.

McBride’s presentation said 88 out of the state’s traditional school districts — nearly 77% — as well as 97 charter, lab, and regional schools, don’t have dedicated funds to refresh students’ school-provided digital devices.

“Large portions of the current device fleet have aged beyond expected lifespans, resulting in higher failure rates, declining performance, and reduced reliability for both classroom and at home use,” the report says.

The report says some schools have limited or stopped take-home access for their device fleets because they don’t have inventory to replace them.

According to McBride, prior to ESSER funding, only 16 school districts had a 1-to-1 digital device-to-student ratio.

DPI recommends that the state allocate recurring funding to support student device programs to reduce reliance on short-term federal funding, according to the report. This legislative session, for a 1-to-1 device refresh over a four-year period.

The report also recommends providing statewide guidance on devices’ life cycle management, including cost considerations and multiyear budgeting strategies. The department also recommends using data systems to track devices’ age, availability, and take-home capacity, and “exploring how to improve parental participation in reporting on home connectivity and device access.”

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

Editor’s note: This article is part of a series on the intersections of community colleges and child care.��.

Community college students are often balancing lives and responsibilities outside of school — from work to family obligations. For students with young children, the struggle to find and afford child care can make a tricky balance close to impossible.

Colleges across the state are finding ways to lessen the burden of child care challenges for their students and communities, from providing on-campus child care and subsidies to strengthening and expanding the child care workforce.

And state leaders are calling for more colleges to follow suit.

“I’ve been saying, all of the 58 need to have child care,” said — referring to the state’s 58 community colleges — at the December 2025 meeting of the , which he co-chairs.

On-campus child care is also a priority of Lt. Gov. Rachel Hunt, a Democrat, who co-chairs the task force with Burgin. Hunt’s says on-campus centers would “leverage our excellent community colleges, strengthen experiential programs for child care professionals, and increase options for students and working families.”

Child care is a critical yet for colleges and policymakers to consider as they work toward and reengage . Models and investments that provide child care for parents as they earn credentials and degrees matter for student access, , and , research says. These strategies also have intergenerational benefits, , relieving families from poverty while exposing children to high-quality early childhood experiences.

When students cannot access or afford care, it risks “their personal investment in education and federal and state investments in postsecondary success,” who studied student parents’ experiences and colleges’ child care approaches at 10 community colleges across the country, including in Winston-Salem.

“Within a broken child care system, colleges alone can’t solve the workforce, supply, quality, and affordability issues that plague families, providers, and communities,” the New America researchers write. “Still, there is reason for hope, and colleges can adopt strategies to better meet the needs of their parenting students.”

Community college students with young children face the same child care crisis all families are experiencing.

About 44% of the child care need in North Carolina was unmet by its supply, according to using 2020 data by the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska. The analysis identified 257,670 children without access to child care within a reasonable distance.

The following map shows the real-time supply of North Carolina licensed child care providers — as well as all 58 community colleges, including their satellite campuses. Use the filters to explore availability through different geographic lenses: by congressional or state legislative districts, counties, regions, or census tracts.

If a region is red, that signifies a child care supply and demand gap, or a “desert,” which in this map means there are at least 50 children with all parents working and that there are at least three children per child care slot in that area.

The map defaults to showing regions as the geographic boundary. To view child care “deserts,” toggle on smaller geographic boundaries. For example, when viewing the map by county, eight counties are red. When viewing the map by census tract, many more areas are red.

The orange circles with graduation caps represent community college campuses. The inclusion of community college campuses on this map allows community college leaders to assess if they have available space, on a main or satellite campus, that is located in a child care desert.

Click on a county or region for more information, including the average cost of child care, median family income, and the types of child care programs in the area.

This map was developed by Child Care Resources Inc. (CCRI) in partnership with NC Child Care Resource & Referral and the NC Division of Child Development and Early Education.

The number of licensed child care programs in the state by 5.8% during the five years when providers were receiving pandemic-era stabilization grants, first from the federal American Rescue Plan Act and then partially continued by the state legislature.

to 6.1% between March 2025, when those grants ended, and September 2025. Family child care homes, licensed home-based child care programs, made up 97% of that net loss.

Advocates have called for child care investments since the pandemic brought increased costs and increased competition for employees. Providers were able to raise teacher wages with the infusion of stabilization grants. Without it, they are struggling to compete with retail and food service jobs. This leaves them stuck between increasing tuition for parents who cannot afford to pay more and losing teachers who cannot afford to make less.

The average cost of child care statewide is $10,481 per year, according to state data in the above map. The median wage for child care workers was $14.20 in 2024, .

Advocates say state and federal public investments are necessary to create a system that provides high-quality care and education at a price that is affordable to families.

Research has linked high-quality early care and education with higher academic, social, and economic outcomes for students and communities. In North Carolina, affordable, accessible child care up to 68,000 jobs, increase the state’s annual economic input by up to $13.3 billion, and boost its GDP by up to $7.5 billion, according to from the state Department of Commerce and nonprofit NC Child.

Child care access matters for community college students

Child care access can be a make-or-break factor for student parents. Seventy-one percent of caregiving students nationwide reported that their caregiving responsibilities could lead them to dropping out of community college in the .

The same survey found student parents were highly motivated to succeed. They were less likely than students without caregiving responsibilities to cite academic unpreparedness as a reason for stopping out. Caregiving students reported higher engagement across benchmarks like academic challenge, student effort, and student-faculty interaction compared to students without caregiving responsibilities. Caregiving students also reported higher GPAs than their non-caregiving peers.

This is despite many factors that “could pose challenges to student engagement” — parent students were more likely to be older, to be women, to be first-generation, to be Pell-eligible, and to be working 30 hours or more per week compared to non-caregiving students.

Student parents who persist through a credential or degree are more likely to attend colleges that provide child care supports like full-time care, drop-in care, or subsidies — as well as support with basic needs — than student parents who drop out, according to .

The same research found child care services like full-time and drop-in care could be the convincing factor for a little over half of students surveyed who stopped out to come back to school. Free tuition was the top factor, with 72% of student parents reporting they would return if the cost of tuition was covered.

EdNC has identified three primary ways community colleges can strengthen child care access and affordability: providing on-campus child care, utilizing the state’s child care grant program, and expanding the early childhood workforce, including through child care academies.

Providing campus-based child care

Community colleges across North Carolina are supporting student parents’ child care access, from hosting full-time, on-campus centers to providing drop-in and after-school options.

Colleges have fewer on-campus child care options than they used to. of federal data, 29 community colleges in North Carolina offered dependent care on campus in 2004.

In May 2025, there were 17 colleges offering on-campus child care, according to EdNC’s analysis. Twenty-one colleges had closed on-campus child care, and 20 had never operated on-campus child care, based on what our analysis was able to document.

The on-campus child care programs that remain vary in their design — from operating hours to funding sources and populations served — but can provide starting points for colleges looking to expand access in their regions.

Thirteen of the 17 colleges providing on-campus care are . Three are Head Start programs, and at least five offer .

According to EdNC’s analysis, five child care models exist at community colleges across the state:

• Licensed, on-campus child care, currently provided at 13 community colleges;
• Both licensed, on-campus child care and drop-in care, currently provided at Cape Fear Community College (operating both) and Forsyth Technical Community College (operating a lab, outsourcing drop in care to a local provider, and providing care for particular on-campus events);
• Head Start, currently at Blue Ridge Community College, Halifax Community College, and Lenoir Community College;
• After-school and drop-in care, currently provided at Sandhills Community College; and
• Drop-in care, currently provided at Central Carolina Community College.

The programs braid parent tuition, along with federal, state, and local private and public funding streams, to operate their programs.

They simultaneously support student parents and their children. Kids on Campus, a national effort to expand on-campus Head Start programs from the��(ACCT) and the����(NHSA), says providing child care to community college students can have lasting, two-generation effects.

“Two of the most effective strategies for reducing poverty,” says a March 2025 Kids on Campus��, “are providing high-quality early childhood education for young children and supporting parents through education and training that will advance their career goals.”

Full-time, formal child care centers are not the only strategy available to colleges. They also do not always meet the needs of parenting students, according to New America’s research.��Colleges should consider options like drop-in care, after-school care for older children, and financial support for off-campus options that work with students’ schedules like family child care homes or informal care arrangements with family and friends.

Drop-in care, which in North Carolina is limited to four hours per day, can provide more flexible options for students needing irregular or unpredictable care. Cape Fear Community College (CFCC) launched its drop-in care model at no cost to students. The program is partly funded through a grant from the��, created by the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners from the sale of New Hanover Regional Medical Center to Novant Health in 2020.

The program has since moved to a more accessible location for children on campus and doubled the number of children it can serve at once from 20 to 40 students.

In 2025, CFCC President Jim Morton told EdNC that he offers this advice to other community college leaders:

You’re here to serve a community, and to educate and train them so they can have a livable wage and a higher standard of living… Child care is really a big challenge and, next to financial need, that was always one of the higher needs… There are so many issues and other reasons for students to drop out, and so when we find them, we try to pick them off where we can.

— CFCC President Jim Morton

Parents’ child care needs do not stop when young children enter school. At , school-age children of students and staff can attend after-school programming through an on-site partnership with Boys & Girls Club of America.

Students also often need evening or weekend care. Additionally, students might need or prefer access to family child care homes, which are more likely to meet those needs at irregular hours, and family, friend, and neighbor care.

Asking students about their caregiving roles and needs is a crucial first step in supporting parenting students, the New America report found. Then, colleges should use those insights to design their approaches both for direct service provision and financial support.

Utilizing the state’s unique child care grant program

Child care costs make it harder for student parents to afford college. , released in September 2025, provides a new way for colleges and policymakers to think about affordability by including costs outside of tuition, including child care.

In 2019, the organization’s “dispelled the myth that a student can still work their way through college in a minimum-wage job.” Then the organization decided to look at the finances of student parents, aiming to calculate “the actual annual cost of pursuing a degree.”

In North Carolina, child care and other costs like housing and transportation mean community college parenting students pay, on average, $16,700 more per year than their non-parenting peers.

When taking into account these costs relative to student income and other grant supports, the average affordability gap for student parents in the state is $19,645, which would require 54.2 hours of work per week at minimum wage to close. That’s compared to an affordability gap for non-parenting students of $2,993, which would require 8.3 hours of work per week at minimum wage to close.

North Carolina is one of only five states that allocates funding for child care grants for community college students.

In 2024-25, the state allotted just over $3 million for the , distributed across all 58 community colleges. Each college received a base $20,000 allotment, plus $10.16 per full-time equivalent student the college was budgeted to serve. Eighty-four percent of the funding was spent, up from about 77% in the 2023-24 year. The average grant award was $3,726.34, and 737 students received funding.

Not all of the funding was used in the 2024-25 fiscal year, but $211,000 more in grant funding was disbursed than in the previous year.

The grants can help students pay for licensed or unlicensed care from individuals or organizations. Grant funds can cover the cost of child care provided by nannies, relatives, after-school programs, and licensed and unlicensed providers, but not parents themselves. Students must provide an invoice after child care services are provided that passes “a reasonable test for cost.”

Colleges are supposed to work with local social services agencies that distribute child care subsidy funding to coordinate aid for students. Colleges should not require official documentation of students’ subsidy application and denial if it creates a barrier or is too time-consuming, Brenda Burgess, associate director of student aid at community college system, told EdNC.

The timing of the state budget and the reimbursement model make it challenging for colleges to get all available funds to student parents. For example, when a budget is not passed by the time classes start in August, community colleges do not receive the grant funds until after the semester begins. Once they do, some parents have made other arrangements. A community college system said the delays cause some students to postpone enrollment.

The same report states that having to reimburse students or providers after services are given creates challenges. Students often cannot afford to make up-front payments, even if reimbursed down the line, and child care providers rely on timely payments.

Some colleges are tweaking policies and taking advantage of the grant program’s flexibilities to ensure the grants reach the students who need them and do not cause unnecessary stress for students, providers, or college staff. Read more about how colleges can make the grant work best:

Training child care teachers, launching academies

Community colleges do not just support the child care needs of their own students. They also expand child care capacity by serving as the main sites for the education and training of the early childhood workforce, including child care professionals.

There were 5,524 students enrolled in the early childhood education curriculum program across North Carolina community colleges , up 5% from the year before and nearly reaching pre-pandemic enrollment levels.

North Carolina is home to several programs that provide financial assistance to early childhood professionals looking to further their education, most often at community colleges. , from the nonprofit , assist child care teachers with the cost of tuition for associate, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees. , from the same organization, provides wage supplements for child care teachers based on their education level. , expanded and financially supported by a recent effort called , provide pathways for new and seasoned early childhood teachers to work and go to school at the same time while increasing their compensation.

Beyond providing multiple early childhood curriculum programs, community colleges also offer alternatives for individuals to receive the , which is required to be a lead teacher in a licensed child care classroom.

With the industry , fast-track options called “child care academies” emerged in the last two years as another quick and affordable option for individuals interested in working in child care.

In September 2025, at least 11 of these academies operating across the state, which prepare teachers through anywhere from 20 to 64 hours of class time to enter the classroom at little to no cost to the participant. These models were started and operated by a combination of community colleges and local early childhood organizations like Smart Start partnerships and Child Care Resource & Referral (CCR&R) agencies. Most were partnerships between at least two of these institutions.

These academies differ depending on local priorities. Some academies, which EdNC’s analysis described as the “classroom-ready model,” give individuals what they need to start working in the classroom, including providing basic health and safety training and covering criminal background checks required to work in licensed settings.

A second approach to these academies, described by EdNC’s analysis as the “teaching credential model,” takes the basic training from the classroom-ready model and adds coursework from EDU 119, the introductory early childhood community college course. This model gives teachers a continuing education credit (EDU 3119) that they can then build upon at any community college and provides teachers with the credential required to be a lead teacher.

In December, the state Division of Child Development and Early Education, under the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, with 16 institutions of higher education —��13 of which are community colleges — to launch new child care academies. Each institution is expected to operate at least three academies through July 2026. The models are funded through the federal .

“North Carolina’s early learning system depends on a strong, well-prepared workforce, and the Child Care Academies are designed to meet that need head on,” said��DHHS Deputy Secretary for Opportunity and Well-Being Michael Leighs . “By providing free high-quality training, we’re opening doors for new educators while supporting families and ensuring children across our state have access to safe and nurturing care.”

The following colleges received funding to start academies:

• Appalachian State University
• Bladen Community College
• Central Carolina Community College
• Central Piedmont Community College
• Davidson-Davie Community College
• Durham Technical Community College
• Elizabeth City State University
• Forsyth Technical Community College
• Guilford Technical Community College
• Montgomery Community College
• Nash Community College
• Pitt Community College
• Roanoke-Chowan Community College
• Sandhills Community College
• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Wilson Community College

Shifting culture

The New America research project of 10 community colleges’ approaches to supporting parenting students’ child care needs led to recommendations and for .

In addition to models like on-campus care and subsidies, the project recommended several ways to integrate child care and family-friendly policies into colleges’ overall approaches.

Colleges, the researchers write, should include child care when writing their strategic plans and equity goals. They should collect data on students’ caregiving roles and needs. And they should consider centralizing child care services and/or coordinating with student services like housing referrals, food assistance, and transportation help.

“Such models ensure parenting students aren’t left to piece together services on their own,” the report says. “They address the reality of time poverty and can improve retention and completion.”

The report references Forsyth Tech’s as an example of a one-stop shop that improves student parents’ experiences accessing several kinds of support.

Maya Clay, a Forsyth Tech student parent , said the support of SPARC and Shanta Reddick, director of and adult learner success, “was like hope brightening my future.”

“Being able to have somebody in your corner, who just wasn’t there to support you financially but emotionally, and like making sure you’re successful, and being able to link you to other resources, makes being a student parent here so different,” Clay said.

Partnering with early childhood support organizations and adopting family-friendly policies make a difference in campus culture and student success, according to the New America research project.

In North Carolina, some colleges are co-locating or partnering with Smart Start partnerships and CCR&R agencies. These organizations’ staff have expertise in connecting parents with child care options and other family resources.

Forsyth Tech’s Reddick has a close relationship with a local CCR&R coordinator, which, the New America report found, facilitates “warm hand-offs and personalized referrals.”

(BCC) is using a former elementary school to co-locate Bladen Smart Start’s headquarters and the college’s culinary and agribusiness programs. Additionally, four classrooms have been set aside with future plans for child care for the children of parents.

The effort is the result of collaboration between BCC, the Bladen County Board of Commissioners,����(BCS), and��.

The New America research says family-friendly policies beyond child care are also important, including virtual options for students when child care arrangements fall through and clarification on when children are welcome on campus.

In addition to providing after-school care for students’ families and community members, is also the only community college in the state designated a employer, a certification workplaces receive when their policies reflect best practices in early childhood and family well-being.

The certification, the effort’s website reads, “is not just a badge. It’s a marker on your journey to create a family friendly workplace, and sends a clear message: you care about your employees, their families, and their children — the future workforce of North Carolina.”

Sandhills has prioritized creating a family-friendly workplace by providing after-school and drop-in care, paid parental leave, flexible work options, among other policies.

“Invest in your employees, their values, and their families, and they’re going to work harder for you. It’s a pretty simple concept,” said Taylor McCaskill, the college’s senior director of workforce development and corporate partnerships, as reported by Alexandra Quintero.

Sandhills also has plans to open a Center for Excellence in Child Care through a partnership between the college, (the local Smart Start partnership for Moore County), Southern Pines Land & Housing Trust, and the Moore County Chamber of Commerce.

The project, which is still in the fundraising stages, would renovate two buildings. One would be a high-quality child care program to serve the neighborhood and act as a lab school for community college students studying early childhood to observe best practices and gain hands-on experience in the classroom. The second building would house both early childhood faculty from the community college and the staff of Partners for Children & Families. Co-locating the staff would help to provide coordinated wrap-around family support, said Stuart Mills, executive director of Partners for Children & Families.

Mills emphasized that the project is born out of an ongoing, close partnership between the organization and the college, and is just one example of the ways they collaborate. Smart Start staff provide training at the local child care academies, some of which are housed at the community college. Two members of the college staff serve on the organization’s board of directors. And both Partners for Children & Families and the college are leading members of the local Chamber of Commerce’s Child Care Task Force, which is working on long-term child care solutions for the entire community.

Community college faculty and leaders are participating in similar local task forces across the state. The task forces are often hosted and convened by chambers of commerce.

Community colleges have a role in advocating for systemic solutions, , one of the New America researchers.

“By supporting early education advocacy in their communities, they can help secure the child care infrastructure that both parenting students and their employees need,” Baker writes.

When community college child care efforts are supported by outside funding, they can be powerful tools for colleges in their roles as employers, as educational institutions, and as community anchors, state leaders say. Utilizing the capacity of educational institutions, including community colleges, is part of the approach of working on long-term child care solutions that strengthen families and the state economy.

Samantha Cole, child care business liaison at the North Carolina Department of Commerce, said the task force has found that these efforts are working well for those participating, but are “hyper-localized” in funding source, design, and reach.

Cole said more peer-to-peer collaboration between colleges could help scale effective approaches to other communities.

“It’s not like you’re hearing that there’s a ton of external communication about the successes of these projects and programs,” Cole said at the December meeting of the task force. “We’d certainly like to see more of that. We think it might help encourage other campuses.”

Editor’s note: This article includes previous reporting by Mebane Rash, Katie Dukes, and Sophia Luna.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

Department of Education to give more than $208 million in grants for school mental health services

The U.S. Department of Education has awarded more than $208 million to 65 recipients to increase the number of school-based mental health service providers in high-need school districts,

The department began reframing its grant priorities for Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration and School-Based Mental Health programs in July, the release says. Those priorities were approved in September after a period of public feedback.

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Those new priorities included changes to the eligibility requirements. Under the new requirements, grant funding could only be sent to state or local educational agencies who would partner with higher education institutions. This change, the press release said, puts state and local school leaders “in the driver’s seat” to decide how to address students’ needs.

The priorities also included “increas(ing) the number of credentialed school psychologists” and “building necessary capacity and local support to ensure the provision of intensive mental health services beyond the life of the grant.”

According to the department, the latest round of grants will reduce the ratios of students to school psychologists and improve the delivery of mental health interventions in rural and high-need areas. Half of the recipients, which will together receive more than $120 million, serve rural communities, the release said.

The grants also aim to support the recruitment and retention of school-based mental health service providers and sustain this workforce.

The release says this announcement came after the department discontinued more than 200 school-based mental health grants in April.

Those grants “prioritized the racial characteristics of providers and divisive ideologies instead of focusing on competent provision of proven mental health interventions for students,” the release says. Some of these decisions have been “set aside,” the department said, due to legal challenges by 16 Democratic attorneys general.

According to , the N.C. Department of Public Instruction received $4.8 million under the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program for the current fiscal year.

The grant abstract says this project “will increase access to mental health services by deploying licensed school psychologists and clinicians across all partner divisions; build workforce capacity through university partnerships, regional internships, and ‘grow-your-own’ training pipelines; implement a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) that integrates early identification, targeted intervention, and crisis-level care; provide outreach and telehealth access; and develop long-term sustainability through Medicaid billing systems and cost-sharing agreements among LEAs.”

Ashe County Schools also received a grant under the program for the current fiscal year, of approximately $2.8 million.

According to Ashe County Schools “will build on the success preparing SMH (school mental health) providers to support two rural Appalachian school districts in Alleghany and Ashe counties. In addition to training school psychology students, they will provide training to build staff capacity to collaborate with school psychologists to support youth referrals to early intervention or intensive services.”

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

At McDowell County Schools in North Carolina, we’ve learned that trust grows slowly, through hundreds of small, predictable moments, each one rooted in how schools communicate with families, staff and students.

Several years ago, we realized our communication was too fragmented to build that kind of trust. Families received the same information in multiple messages — emails, flyers, texts, social media posts — all with slightly different tones or details. A single snow day could trigger four versions of the same message. Teachers were frustrated, parents were unsure what to believe and staff spent time managing confusion instead of connection.

We didn’t need more communication; we needed better communication. So, brought all the schools in the district onto a single communications platform. We use , but the real change came not from the tool itself, but from the clarity and consistency it allowed us to create.

After years of trial and error, we’ve learned that the most effective district communications strategies share a few core principles. First, simplifying your tools goes a long way — using fewer channels reduces confusion and makes it easier for families and staff to know where to look for information. Second, consistency matters — templates provide a reliable structure that not only saves time but also builds trust with the audience. Third, it’s essential to explain the “why” behind messages. When people understand the context, compliance becomes true buy-in. Fourth, it is important to close the loop: ask for feedback, acknowledge it and show clearly how it informed your decisions. And fifth, through it all, lead with positivity. Celebrating even the small wins can keep morale high and momentum strong.

We started by rethinking tone. Before, a school message about early dismissal read: “Due to an unforeseen scheduling adjustment, students will be released at 12:15 p.m. today. All extracurricular activities are canceled.”

It was accurate, but the tone was impersonal and it didn’t give families the context they needed. The new version focused on clarity, empathy and the why: “We’ll be releasing students early today at 12:15 p.m. so our staff can attend a district training session. We appreciate your flexibility and want to be sure families have plenty of time to plan for pickup or after-school care.”

That change seems small, but families immediately noticed. They told us it felt more human — and it cut follow-up calls nearly in half.

We also reworked how we communicated policy reminders. In the past, attendance updates sounded procedural: “Students with 10 or more unexcused absences are subject to disciplinary action per district policy.”

Now, we frame them around partnership and shared goals: “Every day in class makes a difference. If your child has missed several days, our team is here to help you get back on track. Reach out to your school’s attendance office for support because we want every student here, every day.”

When we shared this shift during a with school leaders across the country, we saw dozens of comments in the chat responding with that same lightbulb moment: Clarity doesn’t have to mean formality.

Over time, those simple, consistent choices have changed our district’s culture. Messages now follow a rhythm and tone that feel uniform, no matter who sends them. Parents know where to look for information, and teachers know their updates won’t conflict with messages from the district. What used to feel like chaos now feels coordinated.

But communication isn’t just about sending the right message — it’s also about listening to what comes back. Every few weeks, we invite families and staff to share feedback through short digital surveys. We ask: Are you getting the information you need? Is there anything that isn’t clear? The answers help us spot patterns before they grow into problems. When families in one area said they were confused about attendance reporting, we realized we’d been using different phrasing in school newsletters. We corrected it across all schools within a day. That kind of responsiveness signals to families that their voices matter, and that’s where trust takes root.

We’ve also learned that not every message has to be an announcement. Some of the most powerful communication happens when sharing small, everyday wins, such as a picture of a student helping a classmate, a quick thank you to families who attended literacy night or a note celebrating staff for extra effort. During the webinar, one teacher joked that “snacks to the rescue” had become their unofficial morale booster after a principal started sharing photos of Friday staff snack carts. Those little touches remind everyone that communication is not just about logistics; it’s about connection.

Transparency has been another cornerstone. When our district rolled out a new cellphone policy, we didn’t just send the rules. We explained why and how the decision came about from staff input, safety considerations and classroom disruptions. We held Q&A sessions and gathered feedback. Families might not have loved every change, but they appreciated being included in the process.

The results haven’t been dramatic headlines or viral moments. They’ve been something quieter but more sustainable: steadier relationships, calmer campuses and a deeper sense of trust between home and school.

Great communication isn’t about perfection — it’s about connection. Families don’t expect flawless wording; they expect honesty, clarity and care. And when they consistently see those qualities in every message, they begin to believe not just in the information they receive, but in the people who send it.

(NCDHHS) will partner with 16 higher education institutions to launch free, intensive, short-term training and certification programs to prepare participants for child care careers, according to

Traditional programs for lead teacher roles in early childhood education can last several weeks or months. These new training programs, called “child care academies,” will be shorter, while still offering curriculum that “meets or exceeds” minimum training standards, the announcement says. The length of programs will vary depending on the college or university in which the participant enrolls.

The NCDHHS press release says these academies aim to “address the severe staffing shortage that is a key contributor to the state’s child care crisis,” expand access to high-quality early learning, bolster workforce development, and reinforce the state’s economy by helping parents stay employed.

Funding for the initiative will come from NCDHHS’s Division of Child Development and Early Education, the announcement said, using dollars from a federal Preschool Development Grant.

“North Carolina’s early learning system depends on a strong, well-prepared workforce, and the Child Care Academies are designed to meet that need head on,” said NCDHHS Deputy Secretary for Opportunity and Well-Being Michael Leighs. “By providing free high-quality training, we’re opening doors for new educators while supporting families and ensuring children across our state have access to safe and nurturing care.”

These academies have gained popularity in recent months as a way to address early childhood educator shortages. that at least 11 counties across the state had institutions running child care academies. According to that report, a 2024 survey found staffing shortages were affecting three out of every five licensed child care providers across the state.

Earlier this year, a $1.476 million pilot to expand child care academies with state funding was included in the��. However, the pilot funding did not make it into the General Assembly’s “,” which was signed by Gov. Josh Stein in August.

A February lifted up child care academies as “scalable local solutions,” and the governor’s North Carolina Task Force on Child Care and Early Education highlighted child care academies in its June��.

The NCDHHS press release lists 16 new child care academies — including 13 at community colleges, and three at four-year institutions. Of the 13 at community colleges, only two were included in EdNC’s September report, meaning that 11 of the community colleges may be running programs for the first time.

Per NCDHHS, the list of institutions offering child care academies include:

• Appalachian State University
• Bladen Community College
• Central Carolina Community College
• Central Piedmont Community College
• Davidson-Davie Community College
• Durham Technical Community College
• Elizabeth City State University
• Forsyth Technical Community College
• Guilford Technical Community College
• Montgomery Community College
• Nash Community College
• Pitt Community College
• Roanoke-Chowan Community College
• Sandhills Community College
• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Wilson Community College

According to the press release, participants in the academies undergo training in different formats — with virtual and in-person opportunities — covering CPR/first aid, health and safety, infant/toddler safe sleep and sudden infant death syndrome, playground safety, and identifying and responding to signs of child maltreatment.

Participants are also introduced to the North Carolina Foundations for Early Learning and Development, trained on the Environment Rating Scales, and briefed on program standards for Pathways to the Stars, the state’s updated Quality Rating and Improvement System. They also receive certification and guidance to complete the required NCDHHS criminal background checks.

“Children in early childhood care and education environments need well-prepared teachers to help keep them safe, healthy and learning,” said Candace Witherspoon, director of the NCDHHS��, which licenses and monitors child care programs. “Child Care Academies quickly and fully prepare teachers to provide quality care and education to children and families in their communities.”

Each of these schools will have to offer at least three trainings through July 2026, the release says, though participating schools can set their own start date. Some already began in October, while others will launch in January.

NCDHHS’s press release said those interested in the academies should contact the admissions office of the program at their school of choice.

You can

EdNC’s Katie Dukes contributed to this report.

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The (DOE) has launched a new earnings indicator for students as part of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) process, according to a .

Using existing federal data, the indicator provides students and their families with information about a school’s post-graduation earnings, says the release.

Of 162 North Carolina institutions in the database, 27 are flagged as having “lower earnings” and 13 do not have available data. Most of the flagged institutions are trade schools, but a few private colleges and one community college make the list.

Once a student completes the FAFSA process, the submission summary will now present key earnings data for each institution they have expressed interest in attending. If the institution’s average earnings are below those of the average high school graduate, the form will generate a “lower earnings” disclosure, says the release.

A spreadsheet for the new earnings indicator is now posted on the��, and the department will update the indicator as more recent earnings data become available on the , a tool managed by DOE that provides data to help students compare colleges. The from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and IPEDS. Currently, some of the data relied on for the indicator is more than five years old.

You can download the spreadsheet , by clicking on the hyperlinked “Earnings Data.” To isolate data for North Carolina, in column F, deselect “All,” and then select “NC.” You should end up with a list of 162 institutions. In column K on the far right, you can see whether the department has flagged an institution as “lower earnings” for students. Use the column drop down, deselect “All,” and then select “Yes” to see which institutions are flagged. Additional information about the methodology is included on the spreadsheet in the definitions tab.

Flagged

1. Leons Beauty School Inc
2. Louisburg College
3. Miller-Motte College-Wilmington
4. Mitchells Academy
5. College of Wilmington
6. Pamlico Community College
7. Paul Mitchell the School-Fayetteville
8. Winston Salem Barber School
9. Pinnacle Institute of Cosmetology
10. Gwinnett College
11. Paul Mitchell the School-Charlotte
12. Charlotte Christian College and Theological Seminary
13. Empire Beauty School-Concord
14. Aveda Institute-Chapel Hill
15. Center for Massage
16. Miller-Motte College-Raleigh
17. Health And Style Institute
18. Miller-Motte College-Fayetteville
19. Empire Beauty School-Charlotte
20. Empire Beauty School-Winston-Salem
21. Empire Beauty School-Pineville
22. Carolina College of Hair Design Inc
23. Miller-Motte College-Jacksonville
24. Paul Mitchell the School-Raleigh
25. Empire Beauty School-West Greensboro
26. Beyond Measure Barbering Institute
27. Elevate Salon Institute

Data not available

1. Heritage Bible College
2. Carolina Christian College
3. Southeastern Free Will Baptist Bible College
4. Hood Theological Seminary
5. Daoist Traditions College of Chinese Medical Arts
6. Carolina College of Biblical Studies
7. Jung Tao School of Classical Chinese Medicine
8. Shepherds Theological Seminary
9. Manna University
10. Alexander Paul Institute of Hair Design
11. Bull City Durham Beauty and Barber College
12. No Grease Barber School
13. One Stop Academy

“More than half of all Americans now say a college degree is not worth the price, and total outstanding student loan debt is approaching $1.7 trillion. Families deserve a clearer picture of how postsecondary education connects to real-world earnings, and this new indicator will provide that transparency,”��said Secretary of Education .

Nicholas Kent, under secretary of the department, published this , “Introducing the New Earnings Indicator on the FAFSA® Form,” covering why transparency matters, how the indicators works, and how to use the data to strengthen decision-making.

“This feature reflects our ongoing commitment to providing students and families with the information they need to plan confidently and pursue their desired future,” writes Kent.

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For the first five years of children’s lives, many families are experiencing child care challenges — which have been at the center of discussions among since Gov. Josh Stein established the group in March.

But gaps in child care do not disappear once children start kindergarten. Finding affordable, high-quality child care solutions for school-age children should be part of the state’s continuum of care, advocates and providers told the task force Monday.

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“The parents I work with don’t experience child care as a 0 to 5 situation,” said Beth Messersmith, task force member and campaign director of MomsRising’s North Carolina chapter. “They experience it as a 0 to 12 situation, or older.”

Many families need care before and after the school day and during the summer months in order to work and keep students safe and engaged. However, four in five students in North Carolina do not have access to the out-of-school care they need, according to from the national Afterschool Alliance.

Students, including young children, are instead spending time unsupervised. About 3% of K-5 students, 11% of middle school students, and 34% of high school students spend an average of 5.7 hours without adult supervision per week, according to the same report.

Providers shared their struggles to serve children despite high demand and the benefits children, families, and businesses see when out-of-school care is accessible. After-school programs face many of the same challenges as child care programs. And some child care programs serving children before kindergarten also serve school-age children when school is out of session.

Families need care that works with their schedules and engages students in activities that support them academically and socially, said Elizabeth Anderson, executive director of the , a nonprofit under the Public School Forum of North Carolina. That requires funding, workforce supports, transportation, and creative partnerships, Anderson and a panel of providers said.

“The more we can create a spectrum of opportunities for birth through grade 12, the more that children and families in our state are going to recognize the positive economic impacts of those investments,” Anderson said.

Report due in December on child care solutions ahead of short session

The governor’s task force will release a report by the end of December with recommendations on how the state should expand access to high-quality, affordable child care. Stein formed the group earlier this year as pandemic-era child care funding ran out and advocates across the state and country called for consistent public investment to meet families’ needs.

The state legislature did not allocate new funding for child care this year and did not pass a new comprehensive budget. Some new funding, though lower than advocates’ and state officials’ requests, was included in budget proposals from Stein’s office and the House and Senate, but those proposals were not ultimately passed.

The main child care legislation that was passed made regulatory changes to loosen staffing requirements and allow providers to serve more children in classrooms with appropriate space and teacher-to-child ratios.

The task force will meet again in February, though a date is not yet set. Ahead of next year’s short session, members on Monday discussed what role the group should play in moving policy solutions forward, including six recommendations in the :

• Set a statewide child care subsidy reimbursement rate floor.
• Develop approaches to offer non-salary benefits to child care professionals.
• Explore partnerships with the University of North Carolina System, N.C. Community Colleges System, and K-12 public school systems to increase access to child care for public employees and students.
• Explore subsidized or free child care for child care teachers.
• Link existing workforce compensation and support programs for early childhood professionals into a cohesive set of supports.
• Explore the creation of a child care endowment to fund child care needs.

As the state faces many funding requests, federal funding uncertainty, and slim tax revenue, members said more legislators need to be aware of the state’s child care crisis and why it’s relevant to the state’s economy and future.

“Maybe we have some more work to do around actually educating and engaging members of the General Assembly to get this on their radar and build more champions,” said Susan Gale Perry, CEO of and task force member.

Funding to address issues of access, quality, and affordability is needed, members said, and considering existing funding streams rather than new ones might be more politically feasible in the short term.

“Certain proposals about, ‘Let’s just go raise taxes,’ are probably not going to be something that is going to get across the aisle agreement, but it does create the opportunity to looking at areas where tax rates are already set, or certain revenue streams are already existing,” said Mary Elizabeth Wilson, task force member and the Department of Commerce’s chief of staff and general counsel.

, who chairs the task force along with Lt. Gov. Rachel Hunt, said he and other legislators will be introducing legislation that would double the tax rates on sports gambling.

“If it’s for the children, everybody needs to support it,” Burgin said. “And I don’t believe in gambling … I’m doing it because we need the money.”

Child care fixes would also increase tax revenue, said Erica Palmer-Smith, executive director of nonprofit NC Child and task force member.

“(The generated revenue) would more than cover the overall cost that we would need to put in in the long run to fix the child care system,” Smith said.

‘The gap between 3 and 6 and between May and August’

Many families either do not have an after-school program nearby, do not have transportation to programs, or cannot afford programs, Anderson said in a presentation to the group Monday.

In 2025, 188,295 children participated in after-school programs, but 664,362 additional children would have if they had access, according to the presentation.

Programs are funded through a mix of private grant funding, public funding, and parent tuition. The two biggest funding sources are from the federal government: the , which funds child care subsidies for young children and school-age children up through 12 years old, and through the Department of Public Instruction.

After-school programs exist in all different types of facilities — community-based organizations, schools, faith-based organizations, and child care centers and home-based programs. Anderson described these programs as “folks stepping in to fill the gap between 3 and 6 and between May and August.”

Students benefit when they access out-of-school programs, she said. In the case of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers, 72% improved their attendance in the 2023-24 school year, 75% of students had decreased suspensions, and 90% improved their overall engagement in school.

Anderson said the skills employers are seeking align with those that children are gaining from after-school programs, like problem-solving, teamwork and collaboration, communication, and leadership.

“We know that our after-school programs are an important place where children get to interact with one another and interact with mentors and positive adult figures that help them build these skills, which ultimately help them to become more successful, independent earners in the future,” she said.

Like child care programs in the early years, after-school programs not only help children, but allow parents to work. In a survey from the national report, 91% of parents said these programs help them be able to keep their job.

Families face particular challenges in the summer months. from LendingTree of more than 600 parents found this year that 66% of parents who seek summer care struggle to afford it, and 62% had taken on debt to pay for summer care.

Anderson said more conversations on child care should extend beyond the early childhood period. She pointed to that found educational and occupational attainment improvements were higher when children had access to both early care and education and out-of-school care once they entered school.

“It is something that parents need and want,” she said. “I think that we talk a lot about what happens for children birth to 5, but a child does not turn 5 years old and suddenly not need opportunity.”

Subsidy funding and reform would help, experts say

North Carolina is one of 23 states that does not have state level funding for after-school care, Anderson said. Anderson and panelists said funding is needed to retain teachers, increase access, provide transportation, and help families afford care.

Jon Williams, manager of the statewide at the Southwestern Child Development Commission, is focused on increasing the quality of out-of-school care across the state. He said the transient nature of school-age professionals disrupts consistency for children, families, and programs. A burdensome orientation process creates challenges for owners and directors constantly onboarding new people.

Williams said business training for after-school program directors would be helpful. Many have educational backgrounds and lack the business expertise to be successful in a challenging environment.

“They don’t have that financial background that is needed to run a business, and that creates a lot of financial instability,” Williams said. “If they don’t know how to orient or get new staffing in, that creates a huge problem.”

A policy change that several panelists and task force members raised as a need is to align the for child care subsidies across age groups. Right now, families who earn less than 200% of the federal poverty line are eligible for child care subsidies when their children are 5 years old or younger. But for school-age children, the threshold lowers: families must make less than 133% of the poverty line.

That disrupts care for families whose children need after-school care going to kindergarten or for families with multiple children of different ages who would prefer to send all of their children to one program.

A statewide subsidy floor, which is one of the policy priorities of the task force, would also help school-age care providers, said Erica Simmons, vice president of youth development at YMCA of Catawba Valley.

The floor would raise the per-child rate that child care programs receive to the state’s average rate. In cases where programs receive more than the average rate, they would continue receiving the same amount.

“(The floor) would make it a little more equitable,” Simmons said.

She said it costs similar amounts to provide care at her licensed programs in rural and urban communities. But the subsidy rates are much lower in rural areas.

“We have the same requirements for staff, we have the same programming requirements,” she said. “There’s no difference in the amount that we spend per program as an organization. However, there is a very big difference in what we are able to capture for subsidy. So there’s a big funding gap.”

Williams said there was a gap of $8,000 for one program just last month between the cost of services and the subsidy reimbursement. Annually, some programs in her network accrue around $100,000 in funding gaps for caring for children through subsidy.

Programs also receive subsidy payments retroactively. Changing the timing of funding could relieve some of the financial burden from programs, Williams said.

“I get paid via subsidy after I provide the services, and that’s a huge problem if I’m already in the red,” he said.

“… When we think about the mental health of our administration and our directors, that just adds fuel to the flame,” Williams said. “And it creates another gap, a 30-day gap, where I can say, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ and then that care drops off. So we have to rethink how we get that money out in the state. We have to rethink the rates at which they are given.”

Panelists also shared that liability insurance rates have risen drastically. Williams said her program’s rates have increased by 44% over the last year, a trend among child care providers overall. ��from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) found 80% of respondents saw their liability insurance costs increase in the last year and 62% reported difficulty finding or affording it.

Updates on care for public employees, workforce supports, and funding models

The task force has been split up into three subgroups which have been studying how to move toward the group’s six recommendations.

Samantha Cole, child care business liaison at the Department of Commerce, said a subgroup focusing on expanding child care access for public employees has looked at models across K-12, community college, and UNC-system schools to create child care solutions.

They studied on-campus early learning models at Buncombe County Schools’ , North Carolina A&T University’s , and at Haywood Community College.

“We really see that there have been a lot of successes that have come about in these three examples and others, but they’re hyperlocalized,” Cole said. More external communication is needed for other campuses to understand how and why peer institutions are offering child care.

Madhu Vulimiri, senior advisor for health and families policy for Stein’s office, said the subgroup focused on workforce compensation and supports has been studying strategies to ensure early childhood teachers have access to non-salary benefits like health insurance.

They have studied the possibility of adding early childhood teachers as an eligible population for , subsidizing ACA marketplace premiums through state dollars, and educating early childhood providers about the recently launched Carolina Health Works, which offers options for groups of small businesses.

The group is also studying how existing workforce supports like TEACH scholarships, child care academies, and apprenticeships could be more seamlessly tied together to strengthen the early childhood profession. They have requested that the Hunt Institute create a map to demonstrate what supports are available in what counties.

“That will help us see more holistically, where do we have resources and where are there gaps, and help us hopefully target future resources that we might have to expand those statewide,” Vulimiri said.

The third group, which is focused on financing, has been studying several states’ approaches to endowments and other funding mechanisms for child care, including Nebraska, Connecticut, Arizona, Montana, and Washington, D.C. They aim to develop a paper that weighs the options for North Carolina and analyses costs and benefits of each.

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As of this past April, nearly three-fourths of the more than 64,000 students eligible for the state’s universal education savings accounts were homeschooled or enrolled in a private school before they participated in the program, researchers from the Rand Corp. found.

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ESA students are also more likely to live in districts with higher median incomes, more white families and schools with better test scores.

“If the goal is to have tax dollars follow students, then a universal policy can achieve that,” said Susha Roy, lead author of the report. But if the goal is to reach the neediest students or those in failing schools, she added, “what we’re seeing in Arizona suggests that a universal policy is not the best way to expand access.”

To skeptics of ESAs, who see them as handouts to wealthier families, the findings provide further evidence that conservatives’ preferred school reform policy often leaves lower-income families behind. But supporters predict that use will spread over time to those with greater needs. In Arizona, for example, 57% of students who enrolled in the ESA program over the past year attended a public school just prior to switching — up from 21% in 2023, state data shows. In Indiana, over half of ESA students live in families earning $100,000 annually or less. Advocates working to promote school choice in lower-income communities say Rand’s findings just mean there’s more work to do.

“We’ve seen the national studies and we’re not dissuaded at all,” said Ryan Hanning, a fellow with the San Juan Diego Institute, a Phoenix-based organization that supports faith-based and nonprofit groups. “How do we make sure that ESA is fully adopted by marginalized communities, specifically Spanish-speaking and Black communities?”

Application windows too early

One consistent argument against ESAs is that the dollar amount doesn’t cover the costs at many private schools. of parents who didn’t use their ESA showed that nearly 20% said the funding wasn’t enough to afford tuition at their preferred school. Another 20% of parents were concerned that even if they could pay the tuition, they would struggle to afford additional fees, and almost 10% said lack of transportation would be a barrier.

Stephanie Parra, executive director of All in Education, an education advocacy group focused on Latino families, sees the same challenges in Arizona, which she called “the most choice-rich school environment in the country.”

“Eighty-five percent of our families are choosing their neighborhood public schools,” she said. “It is really a choice rooted in logistics and what is accessible to them.”

Proponents of private school choice say one solution is to build up the supply of schools, like those in the rapidly expanding microschool sector.

The San Juan Diego Institute promotes school choice to underserved communities, but has also provided start-up funds for new private schools where tuition costs no more than the amount of the ESA, generally in the $7,000 to $8,000 range. They include Hands2Teach in Peoria, which serves deaf and hearing students and teaches American Sign Language, and Vita High School, a Montessori-style program in Phoenix where students learn A.I. skills.

“Awareness is the biggest barrier. Many families don’t know ESAs exist, and early materials weren’t in Spanish, limiting accessibility,” said Andrew Lee, Vita’s founder and CEO. “Documentation requirements, such as proof of residency, can also create obstacles.”

The school provides scholarships to cover additional costs like transportation and school supplies.

The Indiana-based Drexel Fund has a similar mission and has helped launch new, mostly faith-based schools in multiple states that primarily serve students who qualify for free- or reduced-price lunch or have disabilities.

Microschools are more approachable to parents who have no experience with private schools, said Naomi DeVeaux, a partner with Drexel. Another way to open up ESAs to lower-income families, she said, is to allow parents to apply as late as a month before school starts, or to add late application windows.

“In some states, the window to apply for your voucher is too early. Families that are mobile or who just aren’t thinking ahead to the next school year will miss it,” she said. “That’s a big thing that states really could improve upon.”

The growth of super small schools has expanded access to private education, said Douglas Harris, an economics professor at Tulane University. He published research earlier this year showing that voucher-like programs have led to a 3% to 4% increase in private school enrollment. Most schools that receive ESA funds enroll about 30 students.

But he warned that more schools doesn’t always mean better student performance. In fact, with microschools, there’s no way to tell, according to another recent Rand study. Researchers concluded that there is insufficient data to determine how students who attend microschools compare academically to their peers in traditional public schools.

‘A case study’

Rand’s latest findings, said lead researcher Roy, have implications not just for states with existing ESA programs, but for those considering whether to opt in to a new federal tax credit scholarship program included in President Donald Trump’s tax cut and spending package.

The Treasury Department and the IRS are now collecting public comments in advance of issuing regulations for the program next year. It’s unclear whether governors will have a say in how the programs operate or whom they serve.

“It’s our hope that we can use Arizona as a case study for other states that are now potentially considering ESA programs because of the federal policy,” she said.

The potential to open more educational options for underserved students has captured the support of some Democrats, a departure from how the party typically views vouchers and ESAs. Arne Duncan, education secretary during the Obama administration, and Democrats for Education Reform CEO Jorge Elorza urge states to participate.

“For both current and incoming governors, it’s a chance to show voters that they’re willing to do what it takes to deliver for students and families, no matter where the ideas originate,” they wrote in The Washington Post.

There are key differences between ESAs and the new federal program, which won’t start until 2027. ESAs, like most voucher programs, are state funded. Taxpayers will fund the federal Educational Choice for Children Act by donating up to $1,700 annually to a nonprofit scholarship-granting organization in their state. In exchange, they’ll get a dollar-for-dollar credit on their taxes.

The size of the scholarships will depend on how much those groups can raise. Families earning three times their area’s median gross income will be eligible for funding, meaning that those making as much as $500,000 in some parts of the country will be able to participate.

Critics argue that the tax credit is still expected to cost the government at least $10 billion annually and will increase over time. Additionally, if higher-income families end up benefitting more from the new program, that would “totally run contrary to the way that we have understood the federal role in education to be for decades,” said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, a center-left think tank.

He added that there’s no guarantee that private and religious schools would offer the same civil rights protections for LGBTQ students or those with disabilities as public schools.

“What are we losing when we move away from what has been our universal public education system?” he asked. “Who could really slip through the cracks?”

Talking about college

In a September paper, he pointed to North Carolina as an example of a state that is ensuring lower-income families get first crack at school choice dollars. The state gives its highest Opportunity Scholarship payment of $7,686 to the lowest-income families and gradually reduces the amount for families who earn more.

Until the state made its program universally available in 2023, “private school was never an option for us,” said Tabitha Lofton, whose two younger sons attend Amandla Academy, a microschool with locations in Greensboro and High Point.

She moved Jamaal and Jackson out of Dudley High School in the Guilford County district, where they often skipped class and struggled to keep up. As a welder who often travels for work, and had to stretch her income to pay the bills, Lofton felt she couldn’t devote enough time to her kids’ education.

All Jamaal wanted to do was play basketball — at churches, local gyms, wherever he could, Lofton said. It was that passion that caught the attention of a coach who worked for Amandla and recruited Jamaal to play. Eager to get her boys out of Dudley, she applied for the Opportunity Scholarship and soon realized that they were thriving in the smaller environment.

“I see A’s and B’s and C’s on their report cards, which is something I’ve never seen,” she said. “My children are talking about going to college. Before going to that school, that was not a conversation at all.”

Marcus Brandon, a former state legislator who pushed for the universal program, founded Amandla in 2022. As executive director of CarolinaCAN, part of the 50Can advocacy network, he’s well-versed in ESAs.

As in the Rand study, state data still shows that most students in North Carolina’s program were already enrolled in private schools before they received state funds, but that doesn’t deter him.

“You still have people who were making sacrifices,” Brandon said. Maybe they were working two jobs or put off buying a second car, he said. “Just because they were [paying tuition] doesn’t mean they were doing it comfortably.”

, a fourth grade teacher at , received the Milken Educator Award, a national award known as the on Wednesday morning, .

The award, presented by the Milken Family Foundation since 1987, recognizes early- to mid-career educators “furthering excellence in education” across the country and gives winners an unrestricted $25,000 cash prize, the release says.

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“Shane Henderson’s work models best practices in instructional leadership, peer mentoring, and professional collaboration, making him a standout educator and model for the profession,” Milken Educator Awards��Vice President Stephanie Bishop, a 2001 Virginia Milken Educator herself. “Welcome to the Milken Educator Network, Shane! We’re thrilled to have you join this prestigious community of educators.”

Henderson, a product of Chatham County, is the only recipient from North Carolina for the 2025-26 award cycle, which will recognize 30 educators nationwide. He is the state’s 58th recipient since North Carolina joined the Milken Educator Awards program in 1994, per the release. Overall, the Milken Educator Network includes more than 3,000 education professionals nationwide.

By the end of this cycle, the awards program will have invested more than $76 million in individual financial prizes and more than $146 million in the national network, according to the press release.

Bishop surprised Henderson with the award during a schoolwide assembly honoring Pittsboro Elementary School’s 65th anniversary in the school gym, , along with state Superintendent Maurice “Mo” Green.

Green said Henderson received the award thanks to his commitment and passion for student success.

“He keeps students at the heart of his work, creating inclusive learning environments to support all students along their educational journey,” Green . “Mr. Henderson is a wonderful example of why we need to revere educators — his selfless dedication has shaped the future of our state.”

Dr. Anthony D. Jackson, superintendent of , said the award is not just an honor for Henderson, but is also a reflection of the district’s mission for excellence.

“It affirms our mission of ONE Chatham for ALL students by highlighting the transformative impact that passionate, dedicated educators have on every learner they serve,” Jackson said in the district release.

Henderson “has become a beloved teacher over the past decade,” the foundation’s press release said, moving from bus driver, to instructional assistant, to classroom educator. He still has his commercial driver’s license so that he can step in as a bus driver when needed.

Recently, his fourth grade class recently saw a 16-point increase in reading proficiency and an overall passing rate of 75% on end-of-year assessments.

But his win was also tied to the work he does outside the classroom. He meets with parents to set goals for students and celebrate academic achievements throughout the school year. As a grade-level chair, he also mentors fellow educators who can support younger classrooms. He runs a “Breakfast for Brainiacs” club for fourth graders, represents his colleagues on both the School Improvement Team and the behavior team, and has led a running club at the school.

His reach also extended beyond the school when he shared research-backed strategies to improve reading outcomes at the National School Boards Association’s Conference for Public Education Leaders.

Henderson will attend the Milken Educator Awards Forum in Washington, D.C., in June to meet fellow winners and education leaders. He also gets access to mentorship opportunities with veteran winners of the award.

“Outstanding educators like Henderson are not aware of their candidacy for the Award,” . “Recipients are sought out while early to mid-career for what they have achieved — and for the promise of what they will accomplish given the resources and opportunities afforded by the Award.”

You can read more about Henderson and the award

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The governor’s convened on Thursday in Raleigh to discuss and vote on strategies that were drafted to achieve 11 goals related to workforce development in North Carolina.

In a , the council discussed the goals, .

A slew of strategies were approved in a voice vote that will be packaged into a comprehensive report to be sent to Gov. Josh Stein by Dec. 15. But “that does not end our work on this council,” said N.C. Secretary of Commerce Lee Lilley. All strategies that were presented at the meeting were approved.

The workforce goals are all on a four-year timeline, and the council will submit annual progress reports for the next three years. Lilley said the goals are time-limited, actionable, and measurable.

“Those reports will measure the progress we’ve made on all of these goals,” he said.

that contained reports on the strategies put together by the council’s subcommittees reiterated the vision for the council’s efforts.

After the strategies were approved, myFutureNC presented a proposal for a “Workforce Act,” a framework that would also contribute toward the goals outlined by the council.

Below, find an outline of the strategies approved by the council to meet its workforce goals, which are categorized by the following groups:

• Education and credential attainment,
• Work-based learning and apprenticeships,
• Employer and sector partnerships, and
• Governing and aligning a future-ready workforce.

Education and credential Attainment

Goals:

1. Ensure 2 million North Carolinians ages 25-44 will have earned an industry-valued credential or degree.

2. By graduation, every high school student will have completed coursework that results in transferable credit or credentials/certifications in preparation for the postsecondary pathway of their choice. The coursework includes dual enrollment, Career & Technical Education (CTE) concentrator, Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC), Advanced Placement/ International Baccalaureate, and work-based learning courses.

3. For graduating high school students, increase postsecondary enrollment, employment, or enlistment in the military within 12 months of high school graduation.

To address those goals, the council approved the following strategies:

• Continue to develop and expand an interoperable data system (e.g., digital transcripts), that allows for real-time, seamless transitions across education, workforce and licensure pathways, along with robust tracking to understand and evaluate learner-level outcomes.
• Further align the state’s industry-valued credentials list with employer demand and expand access to relevant credentials. Leverage the list to support implementation of Workforce Pell.
• Strengthen and coordinate programs that ensure learners are on track and reengage adults who stop before finishing a credential or degree. Create clear and consistent ways to give credit for prior learning, military service, and work experience.
• Align and strategically expand funding and partnerships to support learners with essential needs like child care, transportation, food, and housing, especially for people in rural communities, justice-involved people, people with disabilities, and veterans and their families.
• Promote awareness and increase uptake of , and the NC Need-Based Scholarship to provide direct admission to North Carolina colleges and universities and financial aid to support the cost of attendance, making financial aid more flexible to cover tuition, credentials, and licensing costs — especially in high-demand career fields.
• Review and adjust high school course quality points system, encouraging parity across prioritized course types (Advanced Placement/International Baccalaureate/Cambridge International Education, Career and Technical Education, and Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps).
• Ensure every K-12 student develops a meaningful career development plan, supported by well-trained advisors across schools, colleges, and workforce programs. Expand successful advising models, such as Advise NC and the NC Career Coach program, to more high schools, so all students receive high-quality guidance as they explore and prepare for their future.
• Increase the number of school counselors to ensure that North Carolina meets the American School Counselor Association student-to-counselor ratio of 250 to 1.

Cecilia Holden, president and CEO of myFutureNC, commented on the strategies as she presented them. Referring to the data system to transition students across education, workforce, and licensure pathways, she said the current systems are “disparate.”

She also said that employers say not all credentials have equal value, and that the state should prioritize higher-value credentials.

Work-based learning and apprenticeships

Goals:

4. Double the number of registered apprentices.

5. Increase participation in work-based learning.

6. Engage 50,000 employers to partner with the governor’s Council on Workforce and Apprenticeships on achieving its goals.

7. Establish and expand coordinated partnerships between education and workforce agencies and employers to increase alignment of resources to better address current and projected employer needs.

To address those goals, the council approved the following strategies:

• Develop an employer-centered model for shared training and education of talent, to create a unified, statewide, tiered employer engagement system that incentivizes varying levels of employer participation.
• Leverage existing state and local business councils, professional associations, etc. to identify barriers to the expansion of apprenticeships and work-based learning, build strategic partnerships, and recommend incentives for pre-apprenticeships, apprenticeships, and work-based learning opportunities.
• When possible, embed credentials and degrees into apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships programs.
• Explore opportunities to strengthen and integrate Perkins V K-14 Business Advisory Councils and local area workforce development boards to formalize commitments and shared goals among education and workforce partners.
• Across agencies, review policies and procedures to reduce regulatory burdens for employers and update policies and procedures to foster an aligned multisector ecosystem that supports ApprenticeshipNC and partners.
• Secure stable and sustainable funding to organizations that will expand apprenticeships and work-based learning to include ApprenticeshipNC, NCWorks, NC Department of Adult Correction, NC Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, and the NC Department of Health and Human Services, to meet the needs of employers as they serve people in rural communities, justice-involved people, people with disabilities, and veterans and their families.
• Grow and unify workforce professionals supporting students and engage Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in supporting priority populations and rural populations to address barriers, so that more North Carolinians can gain access to education and training that will lead to advancement opportunities.
• Extend the existing Youth Apprenticeship Tuition Waiver to all apprentices regardless of participation in a pre-apprenticeship program.

The council also approved the following additional strategies:

• Create the Apprenticeship County Match Fund that provides matching funding to counties that support registered apprenticeships by paying the related instruction at community colleges in partnership with companies who pay apprenticeship wages. Funds would be matched on a sliding scale basis based on a county’s Tier designation.
• Implement a tax credit for companies on the wages spent on apprenticeship salaries.
• Launch Apprenticeships UNC that creates new apprenticeship opportunities in areas like industrial maintenance, skilled trades, scientific associate research roles, and health care occupations (where relevant) in partnership with area community colleges.

The additional strategies were raised by J.B. Buxton, president of . When pitching the Apprenticeship County Match Fund, Buxton said that Wake County funds Wake Technical Community College to pay for related instruction for apprentices.

He also noted that because North Carolina is phasing out its corporate income tax, a tax credit for companies may not be necessary.

Employer engagement and sector partnerships

Goals:

8. Create statewide sector-based workforce development strategies for at least three key industries, including, but not limited to, advanced manufacturing, education, and health care.

9. Develop a plan to integrate AI skills development into sector-based strategies and work-based learning in key industries to build a future-ready workforce.

10. Reduce state government vacancy rate to 15%.

To address those goals, the council approved the following strategies:

• Create a governance structure to organize existing industry groups, leaders, and councils within advanced manufacturing, education, and health care to develop and refine statewide sector strategies.
• Equip local and regional stakeholders with the tools, knowledge, and support needed to implement and scale sector-based strategies aligned with statewide sector strategies.
• In collaboration with the North Carolina AI Leadership Council, develop an AI curriculum addressing needs from K-12 to postsecondary that can be integrated into existing coursework to support AI fluency for all North Carolinians, especially people in rural communities, justice-involved people, people with disabilities, and veterans and their families.
• Work with employers to understand and expand the skills related to AI adoption that are most needed by their current and future workforce.
• Improve public perception and attractiveness of state government jobs, by having a dedicated public relations effort to rebrand state government employment, enhancing competitive compensation, benefits, and opportunities for advancement. Expand the partnership with education institutions to create a workforce pipeline into state government.
• Increase use of work-based learning in state government for high-volume, entry-level positions (nurses, CNAs, direct support professionals, correctional officers, etc.) to utilize apprenticeships and trainee pathways to develop talent and fund continuing education opportunities to support retention and advancement.

The council also approved the following additional strategies:

• Charge Commerce and the regional EDPNC research partnerships to develop a comprehensive and regularly updated labor market information tool on job availability and job projections in the target industry sectors by region.
• Create a Good Jobs and Regional Competitiveness Fund to support aligned sector-based initiatives in the research partnership regions. Capitalize the fund with state funding and philanthropic dollars to serve as risk capital or matching funding to invest in a handful of eligible strategies such as supporting apprenticeship and internship funding, employer roundtables, faculty recruitment and retention in key sectors, etc.
• Launch Early College districts aligned with advanced manufacturing, education, health care, and life sciences that allow students at high schools across a school district to complete community college coursework and pathways that lead to credentials with labor market value and prepare them for jobs in target sectors.
• Develop the NC Advanced Manufacturing Credential that is the equivalent to BioWork to create a consistent and demand-side approved credential for advanced manufacturing firms.
• Add life sciences.

The additional strategies were again pitched by Buxton. He proposed adding life sciences to a list of high-demand fields the council has previously highlighted, which includes advanced manufacturing, health care, and education.

After the presentation, Lilley noted that the state’s recently met and that the majority of the conversation of that council was about workforce preparedness and “minimizing impacts of displacement.”

Governing and aligning a future-ready workforce

Goal:

11. Launch a coordinated statewide public outreach effort to broaden awareness and participation in workforce development programs by employers, learners, jobseekers, and incumbent workers, with an emphasis on reaching under-tapped talent pools like rural communities, veterans and their families, individuals with disabilities, and justice-involved people.

To address this goal, the council approved the following strategies:

• Fully fund an outreach and awareness campaign, built around a unifying theme related to “opportunity,” seeking to broaden trust and increase engagement in workforce development services across NC, among both employers and jobseekers.
• Create a single user-friendly platform that incorporates NCWorks.gov, NCcareers.org, and other statewide career resources to better assist users through seamless connectivity, elimination of redundancies, shared reporting, and overall improvement of site performance, data/information quality, and customer service.
• Deliver regular, coordinated training across schools, community colleges, NCWorks Career Centers, and community-based organizations to ensure that all counselors, advisors, and career coaches are fully equipped to guide students toward informed, seamless postsecondary and career pathways.
• Expand access to workforce opportunities that bring career services directly to residents, including people in rural communities, justice-involved people, people with disabilities, and veterans and their families.

Following the presentation of these strategies, multiple council members called for an account of all of the organizations currently working on workforce goals in North Carolina.

“I see a lot of different groups, entities — whether it’s individual hospitals, individual community colleges, school districts, community college partnerships — a lot of people are kind of doing this and trying to reinvent the same kind of work streams that we’re talking about. And it strikes me that some of what’s missing is more of a coordinated effort,” said North Carolina Community College System President Jeff Cox.

myFutureNC calls for a ‘Workforce Act’

Following the council’s vote to approve the strategies laid out above, representatives from gave a presentation that projected a shortfall on the first goal — that by 2030, 2 million 25- to 44-year-olds will have completed a high-quality credential or postsecondary degree — as things stand.

That goal, also called North Carolina’s postsecondary attainment goal, is laid out in state statute in .

Holden said the number of North Carolinians with high-quality credentials or postsecondary degrees was 1,664,892 in 2023, and though that figure is rising, it is only projected to be 1,945,174 in 2030. Holden also said that if the state wants to celebrate in 2030, the goal will have to be met in 2029, because the data takes a year to process.

Therefore, myFutureNC called for what would be dubbed a “Workforce Act,” which is a framework that “represents a roadmap, built on the collective input of all of these stakeholders for what North Carolina can accomplish over the next few years to ensure our state and our economy continues to thrive well into the future,” according to the presentation.

Cory Biggs, director of policy and advocacy for myFutureNC, finished the presentation by noting the importance of robust data collection in order to access the full , which he called “a transformational opportunity.”

He said North Carolina will have to accurately track job placement and wage outcomes for workers with credentials funded by Workforce Pell.

“The thing that I want to flag for you guys today is the fact that we’ve got to get serious about data to implement Workforce Pell well. Otherwise, we’re going to be leaving money on the table, and nobody in the state wants to do that,” Biggs said.

Members of Gov. Josh Stein’s bipartisan Task Force on Child Care and Early Education got an update on licensed child care closures during their most recent meeting.

“Just in the month of August, we had more than twice as many programs close as open,” said Candace Witherspoon, director of the Division of Child Development and Early Education (DCDEE).

Her statement is evidence that — — the overall trend of licensed child care losses has continued since the end of pandemic-era stabilization grants earlier this year.

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Based on data provided by the N.C. Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) Council in partnership with DCDEE, that North Carolina lost 5.8% of licensed child care programs during the five years when stabilization grants were used to supplement teacher wages.

That net loss has increased to 6.1% since the end of stabilization grants. Family child care homes (FCCHs) make up 97% of that net loss.

Trends among licensed centers and homes

Since February 2020, the last month of data before the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of licensed FCCHs has decreased by 23%. The number of licensed child care centers has decreased by 0.3%.

The trend for licensed FCCHs since EdNC began tracking the data in June 2023 has been one of consistent net loss, decreasing each quarter.

There were 1,363 FCCHs in February 2020. That number was down to 1,096 in March 2025, the last data before the end of stabilization grants. Now there are 1,052 FCCHs across the state.

While licensed child care centers have also experienced a net loss since February 2020, the trend has been less linear.

There were 3,879 licensed centers in February 2020. When EdNC began tracking in June 2023, the number was slightly higher at 3,881. From then on it fluctuated, with net gains in some quarters and net losses in others. There are now 3,868 licensed centers statewide.

While the net loss of centers remains small, the effect of a single center closing is huge — especially in rural communities.

Families on Hatteras Island are learning this firsthand. The only licensed child care program on the island is scheduled to close at the end of the year. With no licensed FCCHs and no clear way to save the sole licensed center, families are trying to figure out how to keep their businesses open and remain in their communities without access to child care.

Access to high-quality, affordable early care and learning is crucial to child and family freedom and well-being. It enables parents to participate in the workforce or continue their education without concern for the safety of their children. It also puts North Carolina’s youngest residents on a path to future success.

Trends among subgroups

In addition to monitoring overall licensed child care trends, EdNC zooms in on trends among three subgroups of counties each quarter.

In the counties that make up the area covered by the (Avery, Buncombe, Burke, Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Macon, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Swain, Transylvania, and Yancey), the number of licensed child care sites is 5% lower than before the pandemic. These counties had a net loss of eight programs from July through September 2025, the largest single-quarter decrease since EdNC began tracking.

In the majority-Black counties (Bertie, Edgecombe, Halifax, Hertford, Northampton, Vance, Warren, and Washington), the number of licensed child care sites remained relatively stable during and after the pandemic. But in the most recent quarter, these counties had a net loss of nine programs, putting them 4% lower than before the pandemic, a sudden and dramatic shift in circumstance. As with the Dogwood counties, this represents the largest single-quarter decrease since EdNC began tracking.

In Robeson and Swain, which both have large Indigenous populations, the number of licensed child care sites had also remained relatively stable during and after the pandemic. In the most recent quarter, for the first time since EdNC began tracking, the number of licensed child care programs in these counties has dipped just below pre-pandemic levels.

Editor’s note: The Dogwood Health Trust supports the work of EdNC.

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North Carolina is one of several states that have passed legislation in recent years to align classroom reading instruction with the research on how children learn to read. But ensuring all students have access to research-backed instruction is a marathon, not a sprint, said education leaders and researchers from across the country on

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Though implementation of the state’s reading legislation has been ongoing since 2021, more resources and comprehensive support are needed to ensure teaching practice and reading proficiency are improved, webinar panelists said.

“The goal should be to transition from the science of reading into the science of teaching reading,” said Paola Pilonieta, professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who was part of a team that studied North Carolina’s implementation of its

That legislation mandates instruction to be aligned with “the science of reading,” the research that says learning to read involves “the acquisition of language (phonology, syntax, semantics, morphology, and pragmatics), and skills of phonemic awareness, accurate and efficient work identification (fluency), spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension.”

The legislature allocated more than $114 million to train pre-K to fifth grade teachers and other educators in the science of reading through a professional development tool called the Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (). More than 44,000 teachers had as of June 2024.

Third graders saw a two-point drop, , in reading proficiency from the 2023-24 to 2024-25 school year on literacy assessments. It was the first decline in this measure since LETRS training began. First graders’ results on formative assessments held steady at 70% proficiency and second graders saw a small increase, from 65% to 66%.

“LETRS was the first step in transforming teacher practice and improving student outcomes,” Pilonieta said. “To continue to make growth in reading, teachers need targeted ongoing support in the form of coaching, for example, to ensure effective implementation of evidence-based literacy instruction.”

Teachers’ feelings on the training

Pilonieta was part of a team at UNC-Charlotte and the Education Policy Initiative at Carolina (EPIC) at UNC-Chapel Hill that studied and districts’ of that training. The team also studied teachers’ knowledge of research-backed literacy practices and in small-group settings after the training.

They asked about these experiences through a survey completed by 4,035 teachers across the state from spring 2023 to winter 2024, and 51 hour-long focus groups with 113 participants.

Requiring training on top of an already stressful job can be a heavy lift, Pilonieta said. LETRS training looked different across districts, the research team found. Some teachers received stipends to complete the training or were compensated with time off, and some were not. Some had opportunities to collaborate with fellow educators during the training; some did not.

“These differences in support influenced whether teachers felt supported during the training, overwhelmed, or ignored,” Pilonieta said.

Teachers did perceive the content of the LETRS training to be helpful in some ways and had concerns in others, according to survey respondents.

Teachers holding various roles found the content valuable in learning about how the brain works, phonics, and comprehension.

They cited issues, however, with the training’s applicability to varied roles, limited differentiation based on teachers’ background knowledge and experience, redundancy, and a general limited amount of time to engage with the training’s content.

Varied support from administrators, coaches

When asking teachers about how implementation worked at their schools, the researchers found that support from administrators and instructional coaches varied widely.

Teachers reported that classroom visits from administrators with a focus on science of reading occurred infrequently. The main support administrators provided, according to the research, was planning time.

“Many teachers felt that higher levels of support from coaches would be valuable to help them implement these reading practices,” Pilonieta said.

Teachers did report shifts in their teaching practice after the training and felt those tweaks had positive outcomes on students.

The team found other conditions impacted teachers’ implementation: schools’ use of curriculum that aligned to the concepts covered in the training, access to materials and resources, and having sufficient planning time.

Some improvement in knowledge and practice

Teachers performed well on assessments after completing the training, but had lower scores on a survey given later by the research team. Pilonieta said this suggests an issue with knowledge retention.

Teachers scored between 95% to 98% across in the LETRS post-training assessment. But in the research team’s survey, scores ranged from 48% to 78%.

Teachers with a reading license scored higher on all knowledge areas addressed in LETRS than teachers who did not.

When the team analyzed teachers’ recorded small-group reading lessons, 73% were considered high-quality. They found consistent use of explicit instruction, which is a key component of the science of reading, as well as evidence-backed strategies related to phonemic awareness and phonics. They found limited implementation of practices on vocabulary and comprehension.

Among the low-quality lessons, more than half were for students reading below grade level. Some “problematic practices” persisted in 17% of analyzed lessons.

What’s next?

The research team formed several recommendations on how to improve reading instruction and reading proficiency.

They said ongoing professional development through education preparation programs and teacher leaders can help teachers translate knowledge to instructional change. Funding is also needed for instructional coaches to help teachers make that jump.

Guides differentiated by grade levels would help different teachers with different needs when it comes to implementing evidence-backed strategies. And the state should incentivize teachers to pursue specialized credentials in reading instruction, the researchers said.

Moving forward, the legislation might need more clarity on mechanisms for sustaining the implementation of the science of reading. The research team suggests a structured evaluation framework that tracks implementation, student impact, and resource distribution to inform the state’s future literacy initiatives.

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North Carolina’s , which allows highly effective teachers to receive salary supplements for teaching additional students or supporting other teachers, is having positive effects on math and science test scores, according to an presented by NC State University’s at the State Board of Education meeting last week.

Since 2016, the ATR initiative has allowed districts to create new career pathways and provide salary supplements for highly effective teachers — or Advanced Teachers — who mentor and support other educators while still teaching part of the day. Their roles include Adult Leadership teachers, who lead small teams and receive at least $10,000 supplements, and Classroom Excellence teachers, who take on larger student loads and receive a minimum of $3,000 supplements. 

Those in adult leadership roles teach for at least 30% of the day, lead a team of 3-8 classroom teachers, and share responsibility for the performance of all those teachers’ students. Classroom excellence teachers are responsible for at least 20% more students than before they enter the role.

“Our ATR program was designed to allow highly effective classroom educators to reach more students and to support the professional growth of educators,” said Dr. Callie Edwards, the program’s lead evaluator, at the State Board of Education meeting last Wednesday. “ATR aims to improve the quality of classroom instruction, the recruitment and retention of teachers, as well as ultimately impact student academic achievement.”

In the 2024-25 school year, 26 districts operated ATR programs across 400 schools — 56% of which were elementary schools — employing 1,494 Advanced Teachers who supported nearly 4,000 classroom teachers statewide, according to the evaluation. Edwards said that 88% of Adult Leadership teachers received at least $10,000, and 85% of Classroom Excellence teachers received $3,000 or more.

Statistical analysis of the 2023-24 school year’s data found that students in ATR schools outperformed their peers in non-ATR schools in math and science, showing statistically significant learning gains. 

“Across the various programs I’ve evaluated, these are positive results — especially in math and science — where the impact of ATR is equivalent to about a month of extra learning for students,” said Dr. Lam Pham, the leading quantitative evaluator. “The results in ELA are positive but not statistically significant, which has been consistent for the last three years,” Pham said, referring to English Language Arts.

These effects on math and science grow over time, . Math scores improved throughout schools’ first six years of ATR implementation — though they are no longer significant by the seventh year of implementation, . For science scores, statistically significant gains began in the fifth year after schools began implementing ATR.

Additionally, math teachers in ATR schools reported higher EVAAS growth scores than their peers in comparable schools.

Teachers in ATR schools also reported feeling like they have more time to do their work compared to teachers in non-ATR schools.

This year’s report featured data on teachers supported by ATR teachers for the first time. The evaluation found no positive effects on test scores for students taught by supported teachers compared to students taught by teachers who are not in the program. The researchers also found no effect on turnover levels for teachers supported by Advanced Teachers. However, the report says additional years of data will be necessary to verify if those effects appear over time.  

The evaluation recommended that principals in ATR schools should foster collaboration and communicate strategically about the program with staff, beginning during Advanced Teachers’ hiring and onboarding.

“It’s important to integrate ATR into those processes,” Edwards told the Board. “That means introducing Advanced Teachers to new staff and making collaboration, especially mentoring and coaching, a structured part of the day.”

Edwards said these practices have been adopted in some schools, but principals reported needing more time and support to build collaboration opportunities into the school schedule.

The report also urges district administrators to coordinate with Beginning Teacher (BT) programs, advertise ATR in recruitment materials, and improve their data collection practices. It also calls on state leaders to standardize the program to ensure consistency across participating districts.

“Districts need standardized messaging, professional learning opportunities, and technical assistance to support implementation,” Edwards said. “The state can also create more opportunities for districts to share what’s working with one another and expand the evaluation beyond test scores to capture things like classroom engagement, social, emotional development, and feedback from teachers and principals.”

The evaluators also said “there’s more to do” to expand the program in western North Carolina after Board members raised concerns about uneven participation across the state’s regions.

2026-27 participants

After the Friday Institute’s presentation, Board members from Dr. Thomas R. Tomberlin, senior director of educator preparation, licensure, and performance.

Tomberlin said DPI received 15 proposals representing 22 districts. These proposals have been evaluated by seven independent evaluators, Tomberlin said. The Board had to choose the program’s next participants by Oct. 15 to comply with a legislative requirement. 

The state can only allocate $911,349 for new implementation grants in 2026-27 — less than one-sixth of the funding required to fund all applications. That level of funding is “very low” compared to previous years, Tomberlin said. In the 2023-25 state budget, for these supplements in each year of the biennium.

Tomberlin recommended that the Board approve the three highest-scoring proposals for the 2026-27 fiscal year, and fund these districts at 85% of their request. If the Board approves this recommendation, the state would still have $37,981 in planning funds left over for districts approved during the 2026 proposal cycle.

Tomberlin said districts are already struggling to pay for the program’s salary supplements. The Friday Institute’s report showed that, despite the high median supplements, some districts are offering supplements as little as $1,000.

“Some districts are not able to pay the full $10,000 because they have more ATR teachers than the funding that we can give them in terms of those allotments,” Tomberlin said. “And we had requested the General Assembly, I think, an additional $14 million to cover those supplements, and we didn’t get any.”

The this session included funds to expand the ATR program over the biennium, while the . The General Assembly has not yet passed a comprehensive state budget, and its funding.

Tomberlin said DPI would be in touch with the three districts to verify if they can proceed with the program despite limited funding.

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In at least 11 counties across North Carolina, early childhood education agencies and community colleges are running child care academies designed to get new teachers into classrooms faster than traditional routes — and they’re doing it at little to no cost to participants.

Lasting from two to six weeks and requiring 20 to 64 hours of class time, these child care academies are customized to meet the local needs of the communities they serve.

In recent months, there’s been growing interest in expanding access to child care academies as a way to address early childhood educator shortages. found 60% of licensed child care providers in North Carolina were experiencing staffing shortages.

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Mary Olvera, the director of teacher education for the North Carolina Community College System, said that more than a dozen additional community colleges are preparing to offer child care academies or have expressed interest in doing so, which could help ease those staffing concerns.

A $1.476 million pilot to expand child care academies with state funding was included in the earlier this year. The pilot funding did not make it into the General Assembly’s “,” which was signed by Gov. Josh Stein in August.

The North Carolina Division of Child Development and Early Education (DCDEE) has grants of up to $50,000 available for as many as 10 community colleges or universities in the UNC system that want to run their own child care academies between Oct. 15, 2025 and July 31, 2026. .

Child care academies were also lifted up as “scalable local solutions” in a February . The governor’s North Carolina Task Force on Child Care and Early Education highlighted child care academies in its June .

“I’m very happy for the attention that child care is getting right now,” Olvera said. “The governor’s task force is coming up with lots of really wonderful recommendations, and it does feel like they’ve taken a little turn that’s more solution-focused; people seem to be getting on the same page.”

Given this momentum, here’s what we know so far about where child care academies are operating, what they look like, how they’re funded, and how their graduates are helping to fill gaps in the early childhood education workforce.

Child care academy models

There are two basic models of child care academies that have developed in recent years — a classroom-ready model and a teaching credential model. Both are referred to as child care academies.

They may be administered by local Smart Start partnerships, community colleges, or Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) organizations, but are typically a collaboration among two or more of these entities.

Olvera said the classroom-ready model originated at .

This model requires at least 20 hours of classroom instruction and qualifies students to work in a licensed child care facility. Trainers in the classroom-ready model help students register with the North Carolina Identity Management Service (NCID) and complete required health and safety training — including CPR, First Aid, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and Infant/Toddler Sleep Safety (ITS) — as well as criminal background checks.

Prospective teachers and their employers would typically have to manage this process and incur associated costs on their own. That’s not the case with the child care academy.

“It was designed to get people everything they need to step into work,” Olvera said.

Upon completion of the classroom-ready child care academy, students are qualified to work in a licensed child care facility, but not as a lead teacher.

The teaching credential child care academy model is different. It includes all of the training from the classroom-ready model, but also the curriculum for EDU 119 — the semester-long introductory community college course that has historically been required for prospective lead teachers in licensed child care classrooms. Another route to becoming a lead teacher is five years of experience in a licensed facility.

“So we’re incorporating training in child development, the domains of development, activity planning, social-emotional development, brain development, all those topics that we touch on in 119,” Olvera said.

When students complete the teaching credential child care academy, they earn a continuing education credit (EDU 3119) that transfers to any of the state’s 58 community colleges and counts in place of EDU 119, which gets them the teaching credential that qualifies them to be a lead teacher. Olvera said this also sets students up to continue toward an associate degree in early childhood education.

In addition to qualifying students to work as a lead teacher in licensed child care, the EDU 119 credit also qualifies potential teachers to work as teaching assistants in elementary school classrooms.

Olvera said the child care academies also give students the opportunity to learn about , , and apprenticeship opportunities, all of which can propel them toward higher incomes in the long run. Plus, some models host job fairs or find other ways to connect prospective teachers directly to employment opportunities when they graduate.

“I think the greatest benefit for this is you’re exposing students to local resources,” Olvera said. “So if we’re working with a Smart Start or a CCR&R, we’re pulling in what’s local, and so the students are getting an opportunity to really meet people in the field.”

Counties currently offering some form of a child care academy include: Buncombe, Cabarrus, Catawba, Davidson, Davie, Durham, Johnston, McDowell, Rowan, Stanly, and Wayne. If you know of additional child care academies in other counties, please email Katie Dukes: kdukes@ednc.org.

Child care academies in action

EdNC interviewed leaders from five child care academies to learn more about how they operate and how they’re funded.

Classroom-ready models

The Smart Start partnerships in Wayne and Johnston counties received joint funding from the Camber Foundation for their child care academies. Both partnerships work closely with their local community colleges to offer the classroom-ready models to prospective early childhood educators. Both programs run for about 60 hours over two to three weeks, and include much of what would be required for earning the EDU 119 credential.

Valerie Wallace, executive director of the , said they hosted five child care academies in 2024 and 2025, three of which were funded by the shared Camber Foundation grant. In addition to covering the full cost of the training, they provide students with graduation incentives and tuition assistance if they continue their education, putting their average cost per student at $1,040.

Wallace’s colleague Shelly Willis, director of program coordination and evaluation, said 63 students have graduated from their academies, with more than half either going directly to work in child care or pursuing higher education.

Wallace and Olvera were involved in crafting the language in the that included funding for a child care academy pilot. Funding would have gone specifically to the child care academies in Wayne and Johnston — in addition to 10 more counties — with the provision that:

That would mean shifting from the classroom-ready model to the teaching credential model in Wayne and Johnston Counties, which Wallace said they’re ready to do.

“We’re kind of hoping it’ll go through with the partnership between the North Carolina Partnership for Children and the community college system, so that the alignment piece is there with that continuing ed (credit),” Wallace said.

Their next child care academy will run from Oct. 13 through Oct. 24.

Emily Englehart, the professional development coordinator for the , said they hosted three child care academies during the 2024-25 fiscal year. Twenty-six students have graduated, 14 of whom secured jobs in child care facilities, and four of whom are pursuing higher education.

The program costs around $430 per student, which is covered by the Camber Foundation grant they share with Wayne County.

Englehart said their next child care academy runs Oct. 6 through Oct. 24, and those who are interested can reach out to her via email for a registration link: eenglehart@pfcjc.org.

Priority will be given to Johnston County residents who are not currently working in child care and have no prior experience.

The child care academy in Stanly County is led by Cyndie Osborne, the program head of the early childhood education department at . Working with trainers from the (the local Smart Start) and (the local CCR&R), students spend two weeks getting classroom-ready.

Osborne said she’s run two child care academies so far under the classroom-ready model, but she’d love to implement the teaching credential model — she just doesn’t have the funding to cover the cost of a college course.

“What we have to consider is why it is important to have educated individuals working with young children,” Osborne said.

Students at the Stanly County child care academy paid for some aspects of their training, but could be reimbursed through a grant from the that also covered the cost of some classroom materials.

Thirteen students have completed the classroom-ready model in Stanly County, and Osborne said five to 10 have received jobs as a result. She’s considering offering another child care academy in the spring of 2026.

“There are waiting lists for parents in our county, not having space because the centers don’t have teachers,” Osborne said. “So that was kind of the push for me.”

Teaching credential model

Katie Dowdle, the director of early childhood education at , leads a teaching credential child care academy. The first one was held for two weeks in July.

“And I mean, it’s like ‘The Fast and the Furious,’” Dowdle said, comparing the pace of the continuing education course to the popular movie series about street racing.

Dowdle said the requirements for getting into an early childhood education classroom can be overwhelming, especially for young students. She told her academy students: “This is where you start. This is where we can get you going, get you into school, get you that experience of being in a child care center, and then pursuing your associate’s degree.”

Six students finished with the credential that qualifies them to be lead teachers in a licensed child care setting. Four went directly into child care classrooms and two are pursuing higher education in Dowdle’s classroom this semester.

A three-year grant from the Dogwood Health Trust covered the costs, which Dowdle estimates to be between $500 and $600 per student. The grant also covers the full cost of tuition and materials for students pursuing their associate degree in early childhood education at McDowell Tech.

Dowdle said the fast pace of the child care academy’s teaching credential model was made possible through collaboration with the community.

“People really rallied behind the idea of it,” Dowdle said, referencing coordination with the county’s health department, the sheriff’s office, and McDowell Tech’s own EMS and EMT trainers.

Because McDowell County has a small population, Dowdle was able to develop personal relationships with licensed child care centers and pre-K classrooms, helping her match the community’s need to her student’s qualifications after they earn their teaching credentials through the child care academy.

“We’re small but mighty,” Dowdle said. “We don’t have the manpower to do a whole lot of things, but this is something that I think we could do well.”

Durham County has also adopted the teaching credential model, but their first child care academy lasted six weeks instead of two.

Kristi Snuggs, president of , said the Durham child care academy is a collaboration between her organization (the local CCR&R) and .

Funding came from Duke Community Affairs — specifically the Duke Doing Good Economic Mobility Grant — along with Durham PreK. The cost per student was an average of $1,264.

Snuggs said she thinks spreading the EDU 3119 credit across six weeks gives students more time to reflect on, process, and apply what they’re learning. And the length of the Durham child care academy didn’t seem to deter students from signing up — Snuggs said they had 140 applicants for 20 slots.

“Ours was outrageously popular,” Snuggs said. “And the other cool thing about ours is it’s aligned with Durham PreK and we’re really trying to make the workforce match the children, and so every (aspect) of ours was bilingual (in English and Spanish).”

She’s working with Durham Tech to schedule their next child care academy during the 2026 spring semester.

Snuggs said the Durham child care academy adopted the teaching credential model because when students complete the program, they’re able to start their careers as a lead teacher right away, putting them on track to earn higher incomes.

Dowdle made a similar point.

“The thing is, these positions that they’re going into, they’re not making a lot of money,” Dowdle said. “The reason that you’re in child care in the first place is because you have a heart for children, it has nothing to do with pay.”

She said starting their careers debt-free and with a credential that can transfer to course credit for continuing their education can improve their long-term career outlooks.

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Due to the unprecedented flooding from Hurricane Helene in September 2024, four school buildings in western North Carolina flooded so severely that students were unable to immediately return to school.

Some schools closed temporarily and are back in their buildings, and some are still in transition while awaiting a more permanent home. EdNC spoke with each school district’s superintendent to learn about the status of the buildings and how their school communities look a year after Helene.

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Henderson County

in (HCPS) is split by Perry Creek. The gym sits on one side of the creek, the school building on the other. Helene dumped in Hendersonville, the creek swelled, and both buildings took on two inches of water.

Dr. Mark Garrett, superintendent of HCPS, was no stranger to flooding before Helene. As a principal, he had dealt with water in schools, and during his tenure as the superintendent in McDowell County, he’d faced other natural disasters.

“I think the most challenging part of last year was just dealing with a disaster the magnitude of what we had,” Garrett said. “You sort of think, you know what may or may not be coming, but something of this magnitude — it’s really not anything you can be prepared for.”

Replacing the floors was the largest task before getting students back in the building. Atkinson Elementary needed somewhere to go, and the local rose to the occasion by welcoming the entire student body into their facility.

To mitigate flooding in the future, Garrett said Atkinson Elementary is trying to address things within its control. The school wants to increase vegetation in certain areas on campus and fix drainage issues. Thanks to the newly installed flooring, which is sturdier and can be cleaned up more easily if water returns, the school is better prepared for future flooding.

Atkinson Elementary operated out of the Boys & Girls Club until December 2024, when the new floors were completed. Garrett and HCPS were able to welcome Atkinson Elementary back to its building before Christmas.

The strong partnership between the school and the community organization allowed for a seamless transition. Atkinson Elementary didn’t have to ask; they were offered the space. And the relationship with the Boys & Girls Club did not end once students returned to the school building.

Through a grant, the Boys & Girls Club can embed five mentors at various HCPS elementary schools during the day. With student families now familiar with the services of the Boys & Girls Club due to last year’s relocation, the organization added a transportation stop to pick up students from Atkinson and bring them to the club for after-school programming.

The district’s preexisting relationship with the Boys & Girls Club was crucial in the aftermath of the storm, Garrett said. In the event of future emergencies, Garrett said these community partnerships are vital. “I can’t emphasize (it) enough: Make sure that you know your neighbors, and you know your community partners, and you know these other agencies ahead of time,” Garrett said.

“It’s amazing what you can do when you don’t worry about who gets the credit,” Garrett said. He firmly believes, “When you do what’s right for students, it’ll be what’s right for everybody else.”

McDowell County

Old Fort received over three days last September. Mill Creek, which sits behind (OFES), was overtaken by water and flooded the school. The building was closed for repairs until the 2025-26 school year. While they waited, students merged with nearby (PGES).

The most important thing to OFES Principal Jill Ward and the families of her students was keeping the school together.

(MCS) superintendent Dr. Tracy Grit said PGES staff welcomed OFES with open arms. He praised the leadership and staff at both schools for taking on a challenging transition and remaining flexible and positive.

“It’s astronomical what really took place there,” he said.

OFES’ current building opened in 2020 and was constructed outside of the 500-year floodplain. In order to mitigate future flooding, they reinforced the creek, and the county has taken preventive measures upstream.

OFES received new flooring, doors, HVAC systems, a fresh coat of paint, and more. PGES — having held a larger student body than usual for a year — received new flooring, new paint, and a resurfaced parking lot.

At OFES, the new HVAC units were installed higher than before to prevent damage should the school ever experience flooding again.

“One of the promises we made (to OFES families) is when we put you back into the school, it’s going to be as good, if not better, than it was. And I feel like that promise was absolutely kept,” Grit said.

Post-Helene, displaced OFES families were eager to learn information about their children’s school. Grit had monthly updates for families at board meetings to show the progress being made at the OFES building. William Kehler, the director of McDowell County Emergency Services, was using the county communication channels to relay updates about the school and other community projects.

School board members fielded a lot of calls from the community, Grit said. Once the building was safe to enter, Ward brought people into the school to see the improvements.

Grit, Ward, and MCS were able to meet their goal, and Old Fort students were welcomed back into their building on Monday, Aug. 25 — just in time for the first day of school.

“I love these people, and I love this place, and I love these kids, and I love these families,” said Ward on the first day of school.

Watauga County

Part of was constructed in 1935 thanks to the . The original building held six classrooms, and over several decades, the school expanded to become 66,000 square feet. It serves kindergarten through eighth grade students.

On Sept. 27, 2024, water entered Valle Crucis School and eventually flooded around 70% of the building.

It’s been almost a year since Helene, and Superintendent Dr. Leslie Alexander reflected on the expression “Mountain Strong” — of which she says��the Valle Crucis community��is a living testament.

“It’s a real thing,” she said. “That principal and that staff has really just — they’ve been remarkable.”

For the remainder of the 2024-25 school year, the Valle Crucis School building was closed and students were housed at three different community educational institutions. (ASU) had one preapproved classroom to take the preschoolers. and Holy Cross Episcopal Church welcomed K-5 students, and (CCCTI) housed the sixth through eighth graders.

Before the storm, a new Valle Crucis School was already under construction a quarter-mile down the road from the original building, and had plans to be complete by the end of 2024.

Helene delayed that opening, and then the district had hopes to open at the start of the 2025 school year, but missed this goal because of an overstretched construction workforce in the region.

Alexander remembers getting the staff together with Valle Crucis Principal Dr. Bonnie Smith this summer to let them know the school opening was going to be delayed further.

“They just put their best foot forward, and they said, ‘We’re going to take care of these babies and we’re going to get through this,’” she said. “I really could not ask for a better attitude from folks that I have the pleasure and opportunity to get to work with.”

The only change from last year is that the preschool students moved back to the district, joining up with .

Since the storm, the community and the entities housing students have only deepened their relationships. Alexander said CCCTI has declared that any middle schooler from Valle Crucis who joined them after the hurricane would be able to , should they choose to go that route after high school graduation.

For Alexander, physically finding her staff in the immediate aftermath of the storm was the most challenging part, both emotionally and literally. If there is an emergency again in her area, she now knows the critical role of satellite phones, which can keep her school community connected if cell service fails. During the storm, contacting staff who then got in touch with students and their families was the most important part. Alexander feels good about how the district managed.

The 20,000 square feet of the historic Valle Crucis School that remained dry during Helene was the original rock facade. The school district is still working with FEMA and insurance to see what funding might be available to save the beloved part of the building.

Alexander said Watauga students missed 17 days because of the hurricane, and on top of that, 21 additional days because of inclement weather. She is constantly amazed by her district staff for their attitudes and ability to continue teaching regardless of circumstances.

Yancey County

At in four days, Busick is on record as receiving the most rain brought about before and during Helene.

“We had water in places that we had not seen water in our lifetime,” said (YCS) Superintendent Kathy Amos.

The damage to infrastructure impacted electricity and water access countywide, roads and bridges were washed away, and cellphone service was nonexistent for a period. YCS students were out for seven weeks.

“I think it was just the overall amount of devastation — it was on every roadway, (in) every community,” she said. “It was just our entire county and the loss of homes and the damages, the amount of debris.”

For Amos, that was the most challenging part initially.

, another historic stone school, served 198 students before the storm. The building flooded due to the record-breaking rainfall, and the decision was made that the school would close permanently. Forty-eight students moved to and the remaining 150 moved to .

Expansion plans were put in place to add 14 classrooms to Burnsville Elementary and 12 classrooms to the third elementary school in the district,��.

Burnsville’s classrooms were ready for the 2025-26 school year, and Amos expects Blue Ridge’s expansion to be complete in December of this year. Melanie Bennet was the principal at Micaville Elementary, and she has been named the new principal at Blue Ridge Elementary.

In the aftermath of the storm, with cellphone systems down, Amos and the district used local radio waves to communicate. She engaged the AM/FM radio station in town and reported out to YCS families every Thursday on the status of the school system.

Each school now has a Starlink to help with connection, but YCS leadership decided to continue internally with a radio communication plan for any future weather events — administrators will use bus radios to stay connected and make school closure calls.

Infrastructure, both in the county and on school campuses, is still a concern for YCS. Thanks to��last year’s��flooding, there were slope failures around the county, which destroyed vegetation that typically��would have helped soak up water. The quantity of water that fell during Helene changed how water flows around the county and created drainage issues on campus.

“Anytime we get a heavy rain, you know, three to four or five inches of rain in a short amount of time, it creates problems,” said Amos.

They have drains on some campuses that have been sinking, and they continue to repair gutters and remedy any mold issues.

Amos commends her team for continuing to work through the FEMA process by providing documentation, inspections, and all the detailed information that is required for submission.

building is 49 years old, and it is the only high school in the county. Once the storm hit, it was an emergency command center with food and supply distribution, and it housed 300 people.

All of YCS campuses need funding to update facilities, to mitigate future issues, and to prepare for the incoming student population. The district has a strong pre-K and kindergarten class this year, and people are moving to the county, Amos said. The school board remains focused on long-term facility plans.

“I really thank everyone for helping us through those challenging times,” Amos said. She is speaking to the volunteers who came to help, the donations sent from across the country, the grants received, and the continuous prayers for her community.

Amos knows the journey is long, but she sees a light at the end of the tunnel. She saw it on the first day of school.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

During the five years when pandemic-era funding was used to stabilize the state’s licensed child care programs, the number of licensed FCCHs decreased by 19%. Since the funding ran out at the , they’ve decreased by 3% — the largest single-quarter decline in the two years since EdNC began tracking these changes.  

There are efforts around the state the reverse this trend.

In a Charlotte banquet hall on a recent Saturday night, leaders in ballgowns and tuxedos gathered together to celebrate a group of entrepreneurs who had completed a leadership program specifically for home-based providers. 

With funding from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, (HBCC Haven) program paid monthly stipends to the 10 members of the inaugural cohort — women who operate FCCHs and those who run license-exempt family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) care in their communities across North Carolina.

The cohort participated in leadership training, mentorship, and advocacy skill-building with the goal of empowering them to advance change in the state’s child care systems. They completed their training at a crucial moment for home-based care in North Carolina.

Diverging numbers for licensed centers and homes

Based on data provided by the N.C. Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) Council in partnership with the state Division of Child Development and Early Education (DCDEE), EdNC that North Carolina lost less than 6% of licensed child care programs, which include both centers and FCCHs, during the five years when stabilization grants were used to supplement teacher wages. 

That remains true since the end of stabilization grants, but data on licensed child care through the end of June 2025 shows that FCCHs now make up all of those net losses because the number of licensed child centers has returned to — and slightly surpassed — pre-pandemic levels.

There were 3,879 licensed child care centers in February 2020 and 3,886 in June 2025 — a net gain of seven sites. During that same period, the number of licensed FCCHs dropped from 1,363 to 1,061 — a net loss of 302 sites. 

And from April to June 2025, the first quarter since the end of stabilization grants, North Carolina had a net gain of 44 licensed child care centers. FCCHs saw a net loss of 35 FCCHs in that timeframe. 

Despite the net gain in the number of licensed child care centers, enrollment has decreased by 2% since before the pandemic. For licensed FCHHs, that decline is 23%. The overall has increased in North Carolina over the last five years.

As EdNC works in coming months to understand both the recent increase in the number of licensed child care centers and the decrease in overall enrollment, please reach out to Katie Dukes with any insights you might have.

While we don’t yet know why the number of licensed centers is increasing, Courtney Alexander, a program director for MDC, has a strong sense of why licensed FCCHs are decreasing.

“Many of the family child care home providers do not have retirement (funds), and they do not have (health care) benefits, and many of them are already over 40 or over 50,” Alexander said. 

Alexander said some of her own colleagues are former home-based providers who gave up their licenses to take other forms of early childhood work that would provide access to health care and retirement benefits.

“If the state was able to offer benefits to every early care and education teacher like they offer to the public school teachers, that would be a great infusion of support,” Alexander said. 

And as home-based providers leave the early care and learning workforce, Alexander said there’s little incentive for new educators to fill those gaps due in part to low wages and lack of benefits — a problem faced by centers as well.

Role of home-based early care and learning

While a greater number of North Carolina’s youngest learners are enrolled in licensed centers than in licensed FCCHs, home-based care plays an essential role in the state’s early care and learning landscape. 

“Why it matters is the net loss of those spaces is very important to a family’s ability to be able to find care,” Alexander said. 

Alexander and Theresa Stacker, executive director of NC Early Childhood Foundation, identified a wide variety of reasons that families choose home-based care. 

In rural areas with less population density, home-based care is more practical than centers. Home-based care can also be the best cultural match for families, especially when it comes to language development. Home-based providers can provide more one-on-one learning opportunities, which is especially beneficial to identifying and supporting students with learning differences. 

Both Alexander and Stacker noted that home-based providers have more flexible hours, which can benefit factory and health care workers, as well as first responders and some military personnel. 

“Family child care homes have been, by far, the leaders of having different available shifts for families,” Stacker said. 

“Where would families who work second and third shift find care if they only had centers to rely on?” Alexander said. 

Home-based early care and learning also plays an important role in providing infant care. 

Alexander noted that parents tend to prefer home-based programs over center-based programs when it comes to infants. 

She said new parents especially are more likely to want their infants to be with people from their community who they already know and trust, and who will develop a personal relationship with their child.

In licensed care, FCCHs enroll a higher proportion of infants than centers. In February 2020, 9% of students enrolled in FCCHs were infants, compared to 6% of students enrolled at centers. 

The net loss of licensed FCCHs is affecting the availability of infant care. By June 2025, infant enrollment at centers had dropped one percentage point — but it had dropped three percentage points at FCCHs. 

For both Alexander and Stacker, the decrease in licensed FCCHs represents a decrease in families having the freedom to choose the best early care and learning fit for their children. 

“The families choose these women because they trust them and because they don’t want to worry about their children while they’re trying to work,” Alexander said. 

“When you lose family child care homes, you’re losing an important piece of that child care fabric,” Stacker said. 

Subgroup trends

In addition to monitoring overall licensed child care trends, there are three subgroups of counties that EdNC has been following since we started tracking quarterly net gains and losses in licensed child care. 

Here’s the latest on the western counties that make up the area covered by the , majority-Black counties, and counties with large Indigenous populations.

In the Dogwood counties (Avery, Buncombe, Burke, Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Macon, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Swain, Transylvania, and Yancey), the number of licensed child care sites is 3% lower than before the pandemic.

In the majority-Black counties (Bertie, Edgecombe, Halifax, Hertford, Northampton, Vance, Warren, and Washington), the number of licensed child care sites remained relatively stable during and after the pandemic, with the same number of licensed child care sites in June 2025 as February 2020. 

And in Robeson and Swain, which both have large Indigenous populations, the number of licensed child care sites has also remained relatively stable. It’s worth noting that while the number of licensed sites in Robeson is still slightly higher than before the pandemic, it’s been decreasing since fall 2024. 

Editor’s note: The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation and the Dogwood Health Trust support the work of EducationNC.

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At in Nash County, learning has taken on a new dimension — through fabric, thread, and the hum of sewing machines.

Thanks to a Bright Ideas grant from Wake Electric, art teacher Deidra Hunter launched “Threads of Innovation,” an after-school sewing club that offered fourth- and fifth-grade students a unique hands-on learning experience rooted in creativity and real-world skills, with support from teachers Karla Reynolds, Shari Mennig, Dollie Borum, and Amanda Thomas.

, established in 1994, provides funding for innovative, classroom-based projects that bring creative learning to life for students across North Carolina. Sponsored by electric cooperatives throughout the state, the program supports educators who have original ideas that aren’t covered by traditional school budgets. To date, the program has funded thousands of projects and impacted nearly four million students.

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“Bright Ideas grants are a key way our cooperative supports education in our service territory,” said Kirk Metcalf, vice president of member services and human resources at Wake Electric. “These grants remove the obstacle of funding, allowing local educators to focus on bringing their best ideas to life for our students. Wake Electric is proud to support educators like Ms. Hunter and the positive impact she is making at her school.”

Hunter applied for and received the Bright Ideas Grant earlier this year, using the funds to purchase sewing machines and materials to launch the club. The club met twice a week over a five-week period, introducing students to the basics of machine sewing while also reinforcing broader educational goals such as problem-solving, focus, and technical application. For five weeks this past school year, staff have watched the weekly sewing club meetings in action — where students steadily grew more confident, learning new techniques and expanding their skills week by week. Projects included pencil pouches, purses, and even early lessons in how to hem fabric.

“Sewing enhances fine motor skills, strengthens concentration, and teaches students how to problem-solve in real time,” said Hunter. “They have to measure, plan, adjust when something doesn’t go right, and stay focused throughout the process. It’s a powerful learning tool.”

The club builds on foundations already introduced during regular art classes, where all grade levels have practiced basic hand-sewing techniques, such as making plush fabric items and embroidered patterns. But the after-school sewing club took things further, giving fourth and fifth graders the chance to use sewing machines and complete multiple finished projects.

“It’s fun, it’s like I would never have had this opportunity,” said fifth grader Addison Purdy. “I’ve learned how to use a sewing machine properly without having to mess anything up. We have made a tote bag, a pencil pouch, a key chain, and a zipper bag.”

Beyond the technical skills, the club also created a calming, collaborative environment for students.

“The club is fun and calming,” shared fifth grader Dalirah Sumler. “It helps me calm down. Like if I come in here frustrated from my third block, the sewing club calms me down and helps me concentrate. It’s been fun and I like meeting new people.”

Hunter believes that programs like “Threads of Innovation” are vital to student development. In addition to promoting creativity, the club reinforces core academic skills like math (through measuring and spatial reasoning), reading (by following patterns and instructions), and social-emotional learning (through patience, resilience, and peer collaboration).

Only open to fourth and fifth grade students, the club quickly became a highlight of the school year — showcasing what’s possible when students are empowered with both tools and trust.

“With every stitch, these students are not only learning how to sew — they’re learning how to think creatively, solve problems, and believe in their ability to bring an idea to life,” said Hunter.

Through “Threads of Innovation,” Englewood Elementary is threading imagination, empowerment, and education together — one stitch at a time.

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Since the through the Opportunity Scholarship program in North Carolina, many have predicted an increase in the number of private schools across the state.

So far, EdNC has reported that market share — across traditional public, public charters, private schools, and homeschools — is .

This week, (PEFNC) announced the launch of EduBuilder, an initiative designed to help what it calls “edupreneurs” start and expand private schools in North Carolina.

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The initiative aims to “add thousands of private school seats across the state in the coming year,” according to a .

EduBuilder says it will provide resources, strategic guidance, and advocacy to school leaders.

Currently, according to the , there are 930 private schools across the state, including 603 religious schools and 327 independent schools. That number is up from 881 private schools statewide in 2023-24, growth that is consistent with historical trends.

This map shows by county how many students were enrolled in private schools in 2024-25.

Eleven counties didn’t have a private school in 2024-25, including Alleghany, Ashe, Camden, Caswell, Gates, Graham, Jones, Martin, Perquimans, Tyrrell, and Washington counties.

Here is how the number of private schools grew in North Carolina between 1994-95 and 2024-25. You can see the data along with the growth in the number of students .

In North Carolina, private schools are required to register with the (DNPE). Here is what is required to register:

According to , here is a look at how the fiscal year appropriations for the Opportunity Scholarship Grant Fund Reserve have grown and will grow between 2017-18 and 2031-32, thus incenting the establishment of more private schools.

(NCSEAA), “Once a school is registered with DNPE, the school may apply through NCSEAA to receive Opportunity Scholarship and Education Student Accounts (ESA+) program funding. Registration with each agency is separate and registration with DNPE does not automatically guarantee registration with NCSEAA.”

Registration with NCSEAA includes submitting a new school sign up request, a background check, and the submission of documents. Once registered, the private school is listed as a “direct payment school” by NCSEAA. is the current list of those schools for 2025-26.

will open in February 2026 for the 2026-27 school year. Schools must submit a new school signup request no later than June 15, and the final day for schools to submit their registration documents is June 30.

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