"I will be pushing for additional dropout prevention funding in the short session and a selection process, this time, which targets our low wealth counties with lower graduation rates. I will keep the community informed on any funding plans that develop. I am excited about the excellent effort and wonderful collaborations represented in our area proposals. Let’s keep pushing for the resources we need and deserve."

Re: Dropout Grant Funding

Dear Editor:
I want to appreciate the excellent efforts that 15 of our area organizations in Halifax, Nash and Edgecombe Counties made in applying for recent dropout prevention grants funded by a special legislative initiative to eliminate dropouts and improve graduation rates. Words cannot express my disappointment and frustration at the results of this process for our area, while at the same time I want us to be encouraged and stay in the process. The Dropout Prevention Committee received over 300 applications that requested over $36 million dollars. The General Assembly allotted only $7 million that was distributed to 60 organizations selected in this first round.

At the January 29th Joint Legislative Commission on Dropout Prevention & High School Graduation meeting, I expressed my concerns about the selection process. During the meeting, one of the Committee Co-Chairs, Mr. Bill Farmer, a Rocky Mount native, and now, Vice President of Corporate Development for Time Warner Cable in Charlotte, acknowledged that the selection process may have focused more on how well grants were written than on addressing the areas of the state that need the most help. It was also noted that there were some disparities in funding geographically within our region, but they were too far along in the process when they noted these disparities to make any adjustments without affecting the fairness of the overall process to that point. Mr. Farmer also requested that the committee be allowed to reconvene and take a look at the remaining 247 grants and make a recommendation to the Legislative Commission as to the amount funding that would be needed to fund another round of projects.

It was an unintended impact that the selection process designed and used by the DPI staff resulted in the grants in our region going almost exclusively to Wake County with four grants funded and Durham County with two projects funded. Two Edgecombe County organizations, the Down East Partnership for Children and Conetoe Chapel Community Life Center, did get some impact through some partnerships with ECU & UNC-Chapel Hill grants that were funded; however those grants really emanated from Pitt and Orange counties.

The grants were scored by combining the scores of the two reviewers who reviewed each grant. The committee decided to use a combined grant score cut-off of 180 because that cut-off provided more grants than funds available. While that approach provided a broad geographical selection state-wide, when broken down by DPI regions, in our case Region 3 (Wake, Durham, Granville, Vance, Franklin, Warren, Halifax, Northampton, Nash, Edgecombe and Wilson counties), only Wake and Durham had grants scoring 180 and above except for one grant in Edgecombe scoring above the cut-off that did not get selected. Even more frustrating is the fact that Region 3 submitted the most grants of any region.

For Nash, Halifax and Edgecombe Counties, our combined ratings ranged from a low of 75 to a high of 188. The 180 cut-off was not related to the ability of the proposal to accomplish the objectives of the funding but was rather a way to apportion the few million dollars available for the large number of proposals. There is no evidence, for example, that a proposal scoring 150 could not be effective at preventing drop-outs.

I have provided each applicant from our area with their grant rating sheets, copies of four grant proposals that were funded for comparison, information on the home county locations of the reviewers, a chart of all the grants funded and a map showing the geographical distribution of the grants funded. In addition, a graduate student intern who volunteers with my office has made himself available to answer questions and offer assistance to our grant applicants on understanding their ratings and improving their proposals so that our chances of potential funding will be increased in any future funding efforts.

According to DPI analysis, 88% of the grants funded feature a strong emphasis on improving attitudes, 63% involve tutoring after school, in summer programs and within school academies, a third have a strong parent involvement component and more than half involve school and community partnerships. The 60 grants funded are within 40 school systems. Of those 40 systems, 18 had a decrease in dropouts in the most recent report and 11 had a significant increase in dropout rates. Of the remaining 247 unfunded grant applicants, 42 of those school systems represented have a significant increase in dropouts. There is much work to be done on this issue, and this will be a long-term process.

I will be pushing for additional dropout prevention funding in the short session and a selection process, this time, which targets our low wealth counties with lower graduation rates. I will keep the community informed on any funding plans that develop. I am excited about the excellent effort and wonderful collaborations represented in our area proposals. Let’s keep pushing for the resources we need and deserve.

Sincerely,

Angela Bryant
NC Representative District 7
Nash and Halifax Counties

Paid for by the Committee to Elect Angela Bryant