GOP lawmakers try again to change who runs NC schools for deaf and blind students
North Carolina Republican lawmakers are making another effort to change who runs the state’s three residential schools for deaf and blind students, as well as how their students are selected.
The state House voted 71-45 on Wednesday to pass a bill that shifts oversight of the Governor Morehead School for the Blind in Raleigh, the Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf in Wilson and the North Carolina School for the Deaf in Morganton from the State Board of Education to newly created boards of trustees.
House Bill 11 would also allow the new boards — whose members would be picked by legislators — to set new admissions policies.
“If you want to get a better result or a different result, which we hope is better, you have to change something,” Rep. Hugh Blackwell, a Burke County Republican, said during the floor debate. “This is an effort to do that for our deaf students and blind students in North Carolina.”
Veto last year
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper had vetoed a similar bill last year, saying “it continues this legislature’s push to give more control of education to Boards of Trustees made up of partisan political appointees.”
“These schools were specifically established to serve students across the entire state, and therefore it’s appropriate that they continue to be governed by a statewide non-partisan board with a local advisory board as they are now instead of a local politicized board,” said Rep. Lindsey Prather, a Buncombe County Democrat.
All Republicans voted for the bill. The GOP has enough votes to override a veto because three Democrats voted for the legislation Wednesday.
The legislation now goes to the Senate.
Changing admission criteria
Currently, the State Board of Education governs the three schools, including setting their admissions criteria. The state superintendent, through the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, administers the schools.
The state board currently has a Democratic majority due to the appointments Cooper has made during his tenure.
Under the legislation, each school would have a five-member board of trustees that would have powers like a local school board. Two members would be appointed by the Senate, two by the House and one by the state board.
State Superintendent Catherine Truitt, a Republican, backs transferring control, saying the schools would run better if each had its own board.
Truitt and GOP lawmakers also say giving the schools the ability to set their own admission criteria would address how school districts are dumping students who are causing behavioral problems.
“One of the things that we can do at a minimum, a very minimum, is look at regulations that are not serving their purpose, that are not good for children or educators,” said Rep. Ken Fontenot, a Wilson County Republican.
But Prather, a former special education teacher, said the change could wind up hurting deaf and blind students.
“I believe that after speaking with lawyers and other stakeholders in the state that this bill violates federal disability law,” Prather said. “It would make it easier for these schools to refuse services to students who are legally entitled to those services.”
This story was originally published March 1, 2023 at 5:16 PM with the headline "GOP lawmakers try again to change who runs NC schools for deaf and blind students."
