Math, meals, period products and book challenges: What's in the budget for K-12 education

North Carolina lawmakers’ newly unveiled state budget contains dozens of policy changes and budget adjustments affecting K-12 education.

It’s the first budget proposal between the House and Senate in nearly three years, totaling more than 600 pages of changes to state government. The House hopes to begin voting on it this week.

The budget, released Tuesday, includes everything from math education improvements to banning “meals of shame” for students and new rules for teacher licensure.

That’s in addition to 8% average raises for teachers — with higher raises for less-experienced teachers — and varied bonuses for teachers, unveiled last month. Teachers with 16 or more years of experience would receive $1,000 bonuses, and teachers with less than that would receive $500 bonuses.

Among the other proposals in the budget:  

Math changes. The budget proposes changes to math education, including adding screeners for math deficits for young students and requiring more time on grade-level math in low-performing schools. Students struggling in math would also get individual plans to help them. The budget also includes provisions for contracts for new math initiatives and funding to buy another state's K-8 math curriculum and adapt it for North Carolina. That last part is funded with $10 million saved by the state from public school students who moved to private schools in the past two years.

Bonuses. The state is using the rest of its savings from those students on two other projects: $17 million for a bonus of $1,750 for all school nutrition and custodial staff and $13.8 million for middle school teachers' professional development in literacy.

Literacy. The bill would also extend literacy screening to fourth and fifth graders, along with parental notice of any reading difficulties shown by the screeners. Current law requires those for kindergarten through third grade. The budget proposal also would automatically enroll certain students in advanced English language arts classes. Any middle school and high school students who test well in English would be moved up, unless their parents or guardians objected. The state already does that in math, and leaders have credited that with enrolling more students in advanced coursework, including students across historically underrepresented demographics.

Period products. The budget would also change a highly popular grant program for period products into a program that disburses the products to schools based on the numbers of sixth- through 12th-grade girls they enroll. The period products are free for students to use, and they would be provided by the Diaper Bank of North Carolina.

School meals. The budget would also incentivize schools to participate in the federal school meals program that provides free meals to all students, called the Community Eligibility Provision program. It would incentivize schools to participate by funding any portion of the meals not covered by the federal reimbursement for serving them.

‘Meals of shame.’ The draft budget would also prohibit schools from serving so-called “meals of shame” to students in too much meal debt. In many school districts — including Wake until this past school year — students who have borrowed more than a few meals' worth from their cafeteria are served a substitute meal that includes only fruits and vegetables and no protein-based entree.

Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. The budget would require expanded promotion of the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline phone number and NC Peer Warmline phone number. The draft proposes placing the phone numbers on the back of new student IDs, school websites, the home screen of any electronic device issues to students, school agendas, school calendars, suicide awareness documents and student registration documents.

New way to challenge books and other classroom materials. One lengthy change includes a new process for people to challenge materials in schools that they believe are inappropriate in some way, including library books. Schools generally already have a way to challenge materials, and this would replace that. The new challenge process would limit challenges only to parents and guardians of students, teachers and people who live within a school's boundaries. That would eliminate national advocacy group's ability to challenge materials. The challenge must indicate the materials are "obscene," age-inappropriate or inconsistent with academic standards. The proposed language would establish a new community media advisory board — replacing any current one — that would be made up of nine educators at all school levels and three parents at all school levels. The committee must reach a recommendation within two weeks of a challenge, and the school board would have the final say at its next meeting.

Teacher licenses. The budget would make it easier for people outside of North Carolina to move here and become teachers. It would grant a full, renewable license to any teacher from another state who was licensed in another state, has three years of experience and is in good standing with their previous state. It would also grant a full, renewable license to any teacher from another country that was licensed in that country, was in good standing there, and has either taught three years or been authorized to teach for five years. Currently, those licenses can only be granted to out-of-state teachers if their state had similar licensure requirements. The bill also would eliminate exam requirements for full, renewable licenses for teachers who have proven to be highly effective. Another section of the proposed budget would also extend kindergarten through sixth grade teaching licenses to cover seventh and eighth grades, as well. 

Promoting health and high-tech career exploration. The budget creates several new programs designed to immerse students in education related to healthcare and high-tech careers. One case is the creation of a pilot program in western North Carolina, and another is a "learning accelerator" program for schools that choose to work with SparkNC. SparkNC is a statewide organization that focuses on teaching students through experiences. The budget also would create a Northeast Regional School of Biotechnology and Agriscience serving 18 northeastern counties, including Edgecombe, Halifax and Northampton counties.

Artificial intelligence in schools. The budget incorporates language from another bill that requires the state's Department of Public Instruction to adopt standards for teaching artificial intelligence and to draft a model AI policy for school boards, which would be required to adopt an AI policy. That language is contained in a bill that seeks to restrict more young people's access to social media apps. The rest of that bill is not included in the budget.