Swath of approvals at BCPS Board of Education meeting

The Burke County Public Schools' future central office now has construction company set to oversee the renovation.

During the brief meeting Monday, the board approved Superintendent Dr. Mike Swan’s request to award the construction job of the new central office to Neill Grading & Construction Co. Inc. of Hickory. Following a review of references and discussions with previous customers, Swan’s team chose Neill Grading & Construction over three other contractor bids. Swan had previously said the all-in budget for the project is $10 million.

The school district purchased the former home of Burke United Christian Ministries at 305 W. Union St. in 2024. BCPS needs to move out of its current location it shares with county's health department and social services department, which needs more space. District officials say construction should be complete for the offices to move before the start of the 2026-27 school year. The architect on the project is McKissick Architecture of Winston-Salem.

In addition to the central office, school board members heard presentations about school improvement plans,, Title I-IV funding, retesting, and how dual-enrollment for private and homeschool students impact graduation rates. 

SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLANS

Peer-elected school improvement teams developed strategic plans based on data collected from their respective schools since the beginning of the year. The plans are meant to be fluid, meaning they can be continuously updated throughout the school year as the team sees fit.

The Board of Education approved the plan propositions from last week, providing a jumping-off point for school improvement across areas like student proficiency, student growth, graduation rates, and so on.

While efforts are closely monitored at schools that performed poorly in the last school year’s evaluations — scoring a D or lower on school report cards — teams develop plans across the district for success in every school.

TITLE I-IV GRANT FUNDING

Director of Elementary Education Dr. Bret Wilson explained last week that while one application is submitted to the state, different people in the district manage different Title grant funds. The Board of Education approved the plans, allowing Wilson’s team to submit the Title I-IV plans for approval.

The plans address a total of more than $5.75 million, with the majority going toward Title I funds. The district manages Title I through IV grant funding for a variety of programs:

• Title I — While portions of the $4.6 million in Title I funding will be set aside for private school allotment and other needs such as administration, the remaining $3.7 million is distributed between the elementary schools in the district. Title I applies to local educational agencies and schools with a high percentage of low-income students, which qualifies all elementary schools in BCPS.
• Title II — The approximate $525,000 will go toward increasing student achievement and student growth as well as professional staff development and will break down with 88% to employee salaries and benefits. The remaining 12% will be split between Cognia accreditation costs, the Northwestern Regional Educational Service Alliance’s professional development resources, and other various costs.
• Title III — The smallest of the four factions of the Title funding, this portion goes toward English Language (EL) proficiency and helping students with language acquisition. 69% will go toward educator salaries and benefits, 16% toward instructional supplies, 5% to professional development, and the remainder split between technology, field trips, and other various costs.
• Title IV — With a focus on supporting healthy and safe students, the $471,000 in Title IV covers a wide range of factors. The specific breakdowns show the majority — nearly $350,000 — going toward school resource officers, security guards, GoGuardian and Gaggle safety and monitoring software, with the remainder going to various workshops, well-rounded educational opportunities, and material costs.

Director of Student and Family Services Dr. Dillon Sain clarified at the Oct. 27 meeting that “well-rounded educational opportunities” focus more on character development programs like Character Strong and Second Step — both used for developing students’ interpersonal skills across their educational experience.

RETESTING

With the approval of the retesting proposition, students will have the opportunity to retest within a specified window depending on their age group. The testing window in high school falls in the last five days of the semester, and the last 10 days of the school year in elementary and middle schools.

Dr. Christine Abernathy, director of advanced learning, testing, and accountability, brought the proposal forward last week, explaining that working within that window would provide ample opportunities for students to be on-campus as opposed to summer remediation classes that would not have access to bus routes among other setbacks.

Furthermore, retesting in that window will allow for proficiency and growth to reflect in the performance data for the school year. Abernathy hopes to find ways to encourage students to retest and improve their overall metrics.

Board member Leslie Taylor said, “[We’re] looking forward to seeing some new and creative ways on how we can get folks motivated to come back and take those tests and families to ensure that they get here.”

DUAL ENROLLMENT & GRADUATION RATES

Last week, the board discussed how students who are dual enrolled in private schools or homeschools negatively impact graduation rates.

If a student finishes their senior year, but graduates from a private school or home school, they reflect as a dropout on BCPS metrics. To avoid a lowered graduation rate and heightened dropout rate, BCPS is looking to block the issue altogether.

“The big reason — they will not obtain enough high school credits from a traditional setting in order to be counted as a high school graduate,” Swan said.

After board discussions surrounding the language update in student agreements, Deputy Superintendent Dr. Karen Auton explained the new, finalized verbiage.

“We originally had suggested they finish before the end of their first semester of their senior year,” Auton said. “But, to make it fair, for athletic reasons and different reasons, we have changed the language where they would not be able to begin their senior year dually enrolled if they choose to graduate from another school other than Burke County Public Schools.”

The new policy will begin in full effect for the 2026-2027 school year, prohibiting students from dual enrollment in their 12th-grade school year if they choose to graduate from a private school or home school.

Currently dual-enrolled seniors will be allowed to finish their fall semester, but must transfer back full-time to their private school or homeschool for spring semester if they don’t plan to graduate from BCPS.