Press Releases

Mark Johnson, the NC Superintendent of Public Instruction, will visit Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools on Friday, Feb. 3, as part of his NC Education & Innovation Tour. Earlier this year, Johnson pledged to conduct a listening tour to hear directly from educators, parents, and community leaders across North Carolina.

Last year, nearly 1 million North Carolina public school students were eligible to receive free or reduced priced meals at school through the National School Lunch Program. Of that number, fewer than 120,000 received meals during the summer months through the state’s Summer Nutrition Programs. In other words, approximately 88 percent of the state’s economically disadvantaged, school-age children may have been hungry during the summer.

North Carolina’s public high school dropout rate improved slightly in 2015-16, according to data compiled by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. As reported in the 2015-16 Consolidated Data Report, which will be presented to the State Board of Education Feb. 2, the state’s dropout rate ticked down to 2.29 percent from 2.39 percent the previous year. In 2015-16, 10,889 students dropped out, compared to 11,190 students the previous year.

Numbers of reportable acts of school crime, long-term suspensions, expulsions and corporal punishment events decreased in 2015-16, while the number of short-term suspensions increased, according to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction’s 2015-16 Consolidated Data Report. This report will be presented Feb. 2 to the State Board of Education. The total number of reportable acts of school crime decreased 3.2 percent from the 2014-15 school year. Approximately 1.5 million students attended public schools in 2015-16.

Nine teachers from across North Carolina have been selected as the state’s regional Teachers of the Year for their dedication, innovation and ability to inspire students to achieve and will now compete for the title of 2017 Burroughs Wellcome Fund North Carolina Teacher of the Year. The winner succeeds the 2016 Teacher of the Year, Bobbie Cavnar, a high school English and journalism teacher at South Point High in Gaston County.

Last week, the Wake County Superior Court granted our motion for a temporary restraining order to stop unconstitutional legislation that attempted to transfer the constitutional powers and duties of the State Board of Education to the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Earlier this week, Chief Justice Mark Martin assigned a three-judge panel to hear the case. The three-judge panel was scheduled to go forward tomorrow morning (Friday, Jan. 6) with a hearing on our motion for a preliminary injunction.