City schools eyes taking extra Pre-K slots

The Clinton City Board of Education is eyeing a way to provide a life raft, of sorts, to the existing Pre-K program, possibly absorbing seats into the city system that are likely to be cut from Sampson County Schools next year because of funding issues.

The Sampson County Board of Education is already mulling the elimination of the program or, at best, dropping the number of seats offered to Pre-K students in the coming school year, an issue that has already brought pleas from the Sampson County Partnership for Children, which administers the N.C. Pre-K program for the entire county. Those pleas, offered by Partnership director Donna Jackson, were made to the Board of Commissioners earlier this month with Jackson urging members to help save the Pre-K program from the cutting room floor.

Jackson appeared before commissioners to ask them to consider adding $5 per student enrolled in both the city and county programs, or a total $16,650, to help offset the cost the school systems must fund, a request that was heard with no action.

Tuesday, it was the city Board of Education’s turn to find potential remedies to keep the program viable for youngsters entering the educational arena for the first time.

The conversation revolved around the possibility of allocating more Pre-K slots in the city system, slots the county schools may cut next school year due to financial burdens.

“We’re looking into adding additional N.C. Pre-K slots for the 2025-26 school year,” Dr. Theresa Melenas, head of Curriculum and Instruction for Clinton City Schools, told the school board members.

“As you well know, Sampson County Schools may not be keeping all of the slots they have allotted this year. We’ve had a lot of conversation. Dr. (Wesley) Johnson, Mr. (Greg) Dirks, myself and Donna Jackson, about how many we could help support with the Pre-K children in Sampson County and Clinton City.”

As it stands, the Pre-K program is costing the county schools almost $500,000 to operate. The choice of cutting slots was one avenue being considered, which led to talks of the city schools taking those students. If pursued, the county is proposing cutting approximately 120 Pre-K seats. Of those seats, Clinton City would take 27.

“We feel that adding one and a half classes is probably as much as we can do,” Melenas pointed out. “So that’s an additional 27 slots; that is probably as much as we can do to support them.”

Even if Clinton City takes 27 of the 120 county slots, it still leaves some children who could be part of the program out in the cold, and Melenas stressed, if those slots are returned to the state it is unlikely that they will ever be available to Sampson County again.

“The problem with the Partnership for Children is, if Sampson County Partnership for Children gives the slots back to the state, there’s no guarantee they’ll ever get them back to Samson County,” she said. “Right now, Samson County Schools does not feel they can continue to fund and be a partner with the Partnership for Children and pay for additional slots that are not necessarily equating to full money from the Partnership.

“So I think they’re looking to possibly give up 120 slots,” Melenas added. “That’s 120 kids in Sampson County that will not have the opportunity to go to Pre-K. We’d like to pick up 27 of those, is kind of what we were thinking.”

Johnson, city schools superintendent, added that not only were those slots putting excessive financial strain on the county schools, not being able to fill the vacancies was a problem all its own.

“When you think about the number of kids that benefit from Pre-K, you hate to see the county schools thinking of giving up those slots that probably will never return to Sampson County,” Johnson said. “It would be easy to accept all 120 slots if you knew there was going to be no recourse, financially.

“It’s not that Sampson County Schools is giving up the slots because they don’t value Pre-K. According to their superintendent, (Dr. Jamie King), and different people that share this information, they feel like they’re in the red approximately $200,000 to $500,000 when it comes to these extra slots, mainly because they are not filling the slots. And if you don’t fill the slots, you get no money for the kids.”

Board members asked Johnson why the city schools couldn’t accept all 120 slots if the need for Pre-K was so important.

Johnson said the fear was that the city system would wind up in the same financial boat that Sampson County Schools currently is in with regard to Pre-K – paying for unused slots.

“We are at capacity now. We have 117 slots and 117 are filled, but we also don’t feel like we can just take all 120 of those potential county school spots,” he said. “Not only our teachers, but we have so many kids that start in Sampson County Schools come to Clinton and vice versa, so there’s a lot of transition. So we definitely appreciate, support and see the benefits of Pre- K, that’s why we’re willing to take on some of the slots. We just know, however, that we can’t take more because it would, quote, unquote, kind of cause some financial concerns for us as well if we did. So, we feel 27 is doable, and that’s what we would like to do if needed.”

Questions were also raised as to how the city would select the 27 seats from among the 120 slows, something school officials said was always determined by Partnership for Children.

“So we have nothing to do with the selection process, everything goes through the Partnership,” Melenas said. “They do the application, they check the income, everything runs through them. We just open our arms, we take those babies in, we love on them and we teach them.”

Pre-K registration runs through the Partnership for Children, and those who qualify for the program are then meted out to available slots in the city and county schools. Filled slots are paid for with state funds; unfilled slots are held but must be paid for by the school system.

“We would love to have universal Pre-K for our whole district, but for the Partnership, you have to meet an economic threshold,” Johnson added. “If you don’t meet that threshold, you can’t attend through the Partnership slots. In working with the Partnership, if you took our 117 and their 120 that’s 237 kids. We average about 225 to 230 for kindergarten. But again, all of them are not going to meet the economic ratio. The Partnership doesn’t give you enough money to support an IA (Instructional Assistant) and the teacher in the classroom after about year two or three. So if you have experienced teachers in those classrooms, you’re losing money.”

While discussion continued, Johnson confirmed after the meeting, that the talks were still hypothetical since Sampson County Schools had, in fact, not made any decisions yet regarding the future of its Pre-K program.

“I don’t believe cutting those slots has been finalized; it’s still in discussions,” Johnson said. “I do think that the county schools has informed the Partnership. And so, what the Partnership is trying to do is reach out to anybody, basically, in our community, and talking to our county commissioners, our county manager, and just seeing if there’s any additional funds that they could receive to help that.

“We have communicated with her (Jackson), as she runs the Partnership, that if the funding is not available, and the county schools cannot or will not, fund those spots that we’re willing to take 27 of the 120 for next year.”

Those remarked were confirmed by King, who said Sampson County Schools is still actively looking for ways to fully fund the Pre-K program, while, at the same time, searching for ways to cut costs.

“Samson County Schools is just looking at ways to save money in the Pre-K program this year,” King said. “Sampson County Schools is currently looking at about $480,000 in additional funding that’s needed for Pre-K. So we’re just looking at different options on how to cut some of those expenses.”

One of the many options on the table, he said, was the cutting of those 120 seats.

“Just one of the multitude of options that we looked at was cutting seats,” he said. “We are currently not going with any of those, but that was just one of the recommendations we looked at. I mean, we looked at expanding the program, cutting the entire program, cutting some seats, cutting half the seats. We even looked at moving the whole program to one school in one location, if that was the best thing. We looked at every option on the table. And so, just one of the many options we looked at was cutting some seats.

“But again, we are currently not making any of those recommendations,” King added. “It was just thoughts and ideas of what do we need to do to try to bring this back in line with the correct funding. We want it to be a quality program; we’re just trying to figure out ways to make it more cost effective.”

While those ideas are floating around, Jackson said she is actively working with both sides to try to find ways to keep all Pre-K slots in Sampson County.

“I know they (CCS) are looking at taking on some seats, but they weren’t real sure exactly how many so that was kind of up in the air originally,” she said. “I know that the county schools had looked at, perhaps, giving up some and we were trying to keep them within the county instead of completely giving seats up all together. So I’m working with both districts on this because I support them highly. I know they (SCS) have to do what they have to do financially, I understand it, we’re all in agreement, and it’s not anything negative.

“It’s just that we’re trying very desperately to maintain the seats, even if they go to Clinton City, who we’re very thankful for being willing to take some of those,” Jackson added. “For right now, it’s got to the point where I’m just going to let them let me know when they have confirmation because it has to go through the boards and all of that. Until then, we are all communicating very positively about what we can do to maintain our slots in the county and support the children.”