Greensboro, NC - Guilford County Schools (GCS) mission is described on their website as, "striving, achieving, excelling," but leaders in the school system described to News 2 the challenge of doing these things in the face of deep budget cuts.
This year, GCS expects to have their budget cuts by about $4 million dollars, but this is just the tip of the iceberg of budget cuts they have faced over the past few years.
Since 2009, the schools budget has dropped by $24 million dollars, and this budget means much needed improvements to schools are axed, and teacher salaries stay frozen.
Leaders in the state legislature say budgets have been cut in all facets of government because of shrinking state revenues.
Republican leaders also helped pass a sales tax cut that could have been used to help shrink the gap in education spending. Republican leaders say the tax cut was necessary to help stimulate the North Carolina economy.
But Elizabeth Foster, head of the Guilford County Association of Educators, thinks this years General Assembly has been particularly hostile towards public schools, saying, "What makes me the angriest are people who have no clue about education making decisions about education, that makes me furious. I have students with all sorts of special needs, how dare you try to determine what's best for my students."
Guilford County Schools say the are doing everything they can to prevent teacher layoffs, and as long as cuts they are currently making are sufficient, no layoffs will be necessary.