Chapel Hill-Carrboro students plead to keep teachers ‘we should be fighting to save’
Students clutching carefully written speeches and petitions overflowed the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board meeting Thursday to say they love their Latin, French and choral classes, and the teachers who lead them.
“These are the teachers that we should be fighting to save, not fighting to cut,” Culbreth Middle School eighth-grader Claire Werry said about Latin teacher Susan Meyer.
Werry was joined by over a dozen of Meyer’s current and former students, who submitted a petition with more than 1,000 signatures supporting the district’s world language programs.
Fellow eighth-grader Sarah Rosen said she is “devastated” that Meyer, a national award-winning teacher, could leave Culbreth. She makes learning fun and interesting, with lessons on the history of ancient Rome, projects and games, Rosen and others said.
“I understand that it is necessary for the district to make budget cuts, but our funding cuts are in part due to the significant decline in elementary students,” Rosen said. “Yet the budget is cutting secondary teachers instead of elementary.”
The 11,392-student Chapel Hill-Carrboro district faces difficult decisions because of falling enrollment and a financial crisis.
Since 2020, enrollment has fallen by over 1,000 students, with roughly half of that decline happening in the first two years of the COVID pandemic. Officials have warned enrollment could slip again next year by roughly 93 students.
The elementary schools saw the largest decline, with every grade level reporting 100 to 240 fewer students in 2023 than in 2019.
Enrollment tied to school needs
Because education funding is based on enrollment, when that declines, so does the amount of money available to operate schools.
The district has relied in previous years on its fund balance — money left over after the bills are paid — but that ran out last year, leaving the board looking for another way to balance the budget.
An immediate $5.2 million shortfall led to a “reduction in force” plan that froze 34 mostly vacant positions last April and proposed cutting another 81 positions by the end of this school year.
On Thursday, district staff said 93 of those positions have been cut, some of which were already vacant or were being eliminated as employees retired, left the district, or moved to new jobs.
Superintendent Nyah Hamlett said in a March 13 community message that 31 more positions could be cut, including teachers in core subjects and elective courses, such as art. Seventeen teachers have been reassigned, district spokesman Andy Jenks said Wednesday.
The fate of the rest depends on how many employees are retiring or leaving the district, Jenks said.
Staff spent part of Thursday’s meeting — after students and most parents had left — explaining the difference between the reduction in force, which is an emergency step, and the district’s annual allotment process.
Reallocation ensures resources are fairly distributed as enrollment rises and falls at each school. The allotment process usually happens around June, Hamlett said, but staff affected by budget cuts wanted to know as soon as possible this year if they will have a job.
“This is not a decision that we take lightly, and it underscores the difficult financial realities that we continue to face as a school district,” Hamlett said. “Without clarity on state funding commitments, we must make conservative and responsible fiscal decisions to ensure we can sustain critical resources to our students and staff.”
Parents, teachers frustrated, lack trust
Parents said the lack of transparency about district decisions and uncertainty about the future is frustrating. It also left teachers with a “sense of betrayal and confusion,” 19 anonymous teachers said in a collective statement sent to The News & Observer.
They worry a plan to increase some class sizes to 21 students from an average of 15 could affect their ability to provide quality instruction, individual help, and a safe classroom space, the teachers said.
Parent Karen Fitzhugh reminded the board Thursday that officials initially said they would try to avoid cuts that directly affect students. She suggested cutting and consolidating “high-salaried” district positions, and making an “across-the-board salary cut of all six-figure paychecks.”
“We’re in dire financial straits, and the district has developed a huge trust issue within the community by saying one thing and doing another, causing many frustrated people to no longer feel that they can trust what the district says it’s going to do,” Fitzhugh said.
Another parent, David Schwartz, said he worries more parents could leave the district or decide not to bring their students if popular programs are cut.
“I encourage you to be creative and find ways to invest in things that will try to entice families to send their kids back to the district so that we can be growing enrollment rather than trying to deal with the heartbreak of looking where to cut,” he said.
French, Latin, chorus to continue
Hamlett clarified Thursday that middle and high schools will continue to offer French and Latin to students who are already enrolled or registering for next year’s classes. The future of the world languages programs is still pending for younger students, staff said later.
The district also plans to continue the chorus program, Hamlett said.
Emma Yung, a junior at East Chapel Hill High School, said her love for the arts gave her an outlet for improving herself. She was recently accepted into the North Carolina Governor’s School for visual art, has won awards for her artwork and participated in five school productions, she said.
“There is no community that I know that is more accepting or kind or understanding than the arts, and I don’t believe I could have recovered the way I have without them,” Yung said, referring to her struggle with mental illness in middle school.
The students who spoke were “amazing,” said Lauren Pavlis, a parent and child psychologist. They “are living through an incredibly difficult time in the world” and need adults “to show up for them,” she said.
“The two most important, core things that kids need are stability and vibrant, in-person, face-to-face relationships with peers, teachers and adults outside their family of origin,” Pavlis said. “I urge the district to try as best they can in this moment to re-center on those core needs.”
School board members voted on some of the proposed cuts in a closed door meeting ahead of Thursday’s public hearing. More votes could follow, and updates will be posted under the meeting agenda link on the district’s website.
The board also got an update on the 2025-26 budget, which is being drafted and could be submitted soon to the county manager. The budget includes a request for an extra $7.6 million, which would bring the district’s county funding to $70.7 million next year.
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County schools are scheduled to talk with the county commissioners about the budget April 29.
This story was originally published March 21, 2025 at 8:30 AM.
