A shift in the Randolph County Schools budget to fund lead teachers may have an unanticipated impact on the Archdale-Trinity supplemental school tax budget.

The Council, which oversees the local tax budget, questions such a move in one of the hardest budget years in history.

In April, Randolph County Schools shifted local money from reading teachers to the lead teacher program.

As a result of the Board’s action, reading teachers are funded through Title I money, which is based on the free and reduced lunch program. All but four elementary schools in the county are eligible for Title I money. Three of the four elementary schools — Hopewell, Lawrence and Trindale — are in the Archdale-Trinity attendance area. The fourth school is Farmer Elementary in the Asheboro area.

The question is how to fund reading teachers at those four elementary schools.

“I am for keeping reading teachers in the elementary schools. It is the county’s shifting of funds from the reading teacher positions to lead teachers that I question,” said Archdale-Trinity Tax Council Vice Chairman Jeremy Godwin. “These three Archdale-Trinity schools may have to use Archdale-Trinity dollars to fund the reading teachers, but the tax advisory council has not been officially notified of this budget change ...

“This is an unfunded county mandate and the result is that Archdale-Trinity tax dollars at these schools will have to be spent to just keep up with the rest of the county’s elementary schools.”

The supplemental school tax, approved by Archdale-Trinity voters in 1969, was designed to supplement area schools.

“Archdale-Trinity property owners pay the school tax in order to provide additional needs and resources to students,” Godwin said.

Becky Coltrane, School Board member and former Tax Council chairman, agrees. “Supplementary taxes are collected to help these schools in addition to what the county provides.”

Coltrane and Godwin question if the implementation of lead teachers is a good idea.

“They [the administration] wanted to add the curriculum specialists,” said Coltrane. “They felt that the teachers needed that support.”

She questions if the Board was given the full budget picture when they made the decision.

“We didn’t understand that concept the way that it was presented before,” she said. “We were not cutting the reading teachers, we were just changing the source of funding.”

Godwin also questions the wisdom of creating a new program in the midst of an unpredictable economy.

“Support positions such as lead teachers are easier to justify when times are good, but with the current economic climate, I cannot fathom a school system creating such a position systemwide.”

The supplemental school tax budget is primarily distributed on a per-pupil basis. Each school submits to the tax council how the money will be spent.

Godwin said that the supplemental school tax can fund salaries, however, the positions should have been included in each school’s budget submitted in April.

According Crystal Clodfelter, director of kindergarten through fifth grade instruction for Randolph County Schools, lead teachers have been hired for Trindale, John Lawrence and Hopewell elementary schools.