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<br />IO: Barry Tacobs, Chair <br />Board of County Conunissioners <br />FROM: Lisa Shrckey, Chair <br />CHC.CS Board of Education <br />RE: Response to Request to Respond to Questions Regarding Equity <br />DATE: March 6, 2006 <br />At your request, the Chapel Hill-Canboro City Schools Board of Education discussed <br />responses to the questions that you recently for-warded to me pertaining to equity, Below, I <br />have written a response to each question that is intended to capture the consensus of our Board.. <br />We appreciate the oppor-Cunity to provide input into the process while at the same time <br />recognize that the Conunissioners and the Boards of Education have different roles and <br />responsibilities with respect to equity. <br />6~Iznt is your definition of equity? <br />For decades, the courts have struggled with defining equity,. It is a complex issue mice <br />one accepts the premise that `"equal" funding is not necessu~ily "equitable." Districts' student <br />populations vary in terms of needs, cost of living indices fluctuate, capital needs in districts that <br />are growing or that have older buildings in need of r°epair at°e greater, and supplemental funding <br />from federal grants and private cmrhibutions can impact the level of overall resources. These <br />issues are cmnpounded by the question of how much latitude should a community have to <br />supplement a basin level of state funding. fii North Carolina, equity with respect to state <br />funding was defined raider the Basic Education Plan as providing basically the same level of <br />resources based on ADM. More recently in the Leandro case, equity is associated with <br />achieving comparable shtdent outcomes. <br />At the local level, the Board of County Commissioners has considered several ways to <br />look aC equity. At a work session on April 20, 2005, the following possibilities were proposed: <br />1. Absolute funding equity (e.g. local or total annual per pupil fimding identical between <br />school systems). <br />2. Progranunatic equity (e.g. all OCS & CHCCS students with access to all of each <br />system's programs).. <br />3. Or -somewhere between these two ends of the spectrum, and/or some combination of <br />funding and progranunatic equity. <br />Lincoln CeN~r 750 & Merrltl Ivill ROOd Oh~pel Hill. MC 275'1 G-2878 ~ (91~?) y67-821'1 ° vawva chccs 1:12 nc us <br />