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- This is a different look for us back in the studio.

Very excited about it after almost two year absence.

And we are now in part two of a conversation with those who lead public education in North and South Carolina, the superintendents of both education and the Department of Public Instruction in South and North Carolina, part two starts now.

- Gratefully acknowledging support by Martin Marietta, a leading provider of natural resource based building materials, providing the foundation upon which our communities improve and grow.

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On this edition of Carolina Business Review, Molly Spearman, South Carolina, Superintendent of Education and Catherine Truitt, North Carolina Superintendent of Education.

(spirited music) - Welcome again to part two of education.

Welcome again to you both .

I'm, I'm genuinely personally thrilled to have you here, both.

And you know, as we talk off camera and you all feed off each other's energy and it's, it's, it's exciting.

And I learn a whole lot, but Molly Spearman, I'll start with you.

Let's talk about teachers, no surprise.

Before this public health crisis, it was all about their pay and retaining them.

Now it seems like it's two or three X of that.

So how, try to describe what the work that the teaching staff is facing now and how do you keep them in a classroom?

- Well, hats off to our teachers all across our states and the country.

They, they have done a yeoman's job on not only taking care of their students, but remembering that they are parents too and they have their own children, so, and own family.

So there's been a lot of trauma, but they're so dedicated to be there for the kids.

And we've seen them teach in the classroom while they're teaching online.

It just, there there've been some, we've asked, we've asked so much of them, they're tired.

They need more pay, but I will say, I think the respect of the whole country for public schools has grown because we now see that the public school really is the center of the community.

And if it shuts down, the whole business world has to shut down.

And so that, that regard is wonderful, but I think it's still compensation.

And in South Carolina, we, we compete back and forth with North Carolina -- - Georgia.

- We touch a little bit along the border.

Whoever has the highest pay and, you know, and gets those folks back and forth.

So we're continually raising pay, raising compensation.

For us, at least during my term, we've had about a 27% increase in the teaching first year pay while I've been in office.

So that's great, but it's still not where it needs to be.

So we're, we're continually working on that.

But now I think it's as much the, the support and the rhetoric that teachers have had to face.

All educators have had to face.

- You mean some parents or school violence or?

- All, all of the above.

The masking issue, the vaccine issue, the school violence, the emotional issues, all of that.

And for someone to do this very, very important work for a low pay compensation that we, you know, we give them, I mean, it's tremendous.

People who go into education are usually the ones who have just felt called to that all of their life.

And so we're making it, trying to support them.

Trying always, we've always been doing scholarships, any way we can recruit people into the profession, making it easier for folks who've had a career to now enter the teaching career.

So we're trying to think of everything possible to support teachers and, and get, get them engaged in the leadership at the school.

I think that's something that doesn't cost any money, but is something that teachers really deserve and they feel so needed when they can be part of the leadership at the school.

So we're doing more and more of that cooperative leadership.

So there are lots of things we're trying.

- Let's just nail down a number or two here.

Superintendent Truitt.

The idea of, what's the starting pay in North Carolina, regardless of what policy or public debate would be in, in the general assembly or on Jones Street, in Raleigh, what would you like a teacher who is a veteran earning in North Carolina?

What would be quintessential?

- So you want a dollar amount?

- Dollar amount to start and where you want to go.

Yeah, absolute dollar amount.

- We have plans right now to transform the way we certify and compensate unlicensed teachers.

And so right now starting pay is $36,000, plus your local supplement.

So in this area, in the Charlotte area, you can probably add another eight or $9,000 to that, to that figure.

If you're a national board certified teacher, you add another 12% to that figure.

So what we would like to see is there's, there's broad consensus on, on this, this work that began before I took office that has continued to occur through our legislated PEPC commission, Professional Educator Standards Commission that would allow for pay to be determined by competencies demonstrated.

So in other words, we could have a salary instead of an hourly wage for our teacher assistants, then starting pay, I think should be $40,000.

And then when a teacher has met certain competencies three out of five years of teaching, their pay continues to rise, then they can reach a teacher leadership position.

You mentioned teachers engaging with leadership.

Let's say that perhaps you are a teacher who delivers professional development to other teachers after school, or you're teaching four out of five periods a day because you're spending one day working, mentoring new teachers.

That should be its own part, its own part of the pay scale.

And we'd like to see that top out at $70,000 before any other supplements.

- Is that doable for you?

- Yes, and we're at a similar place, 36,000, the state for first pays for a first-year teacher, local supplement that I was just asked this question this week at the legislature.

What, what do you really want it to be and 40,000 was the number I said too.

So we're on the same wavelength here.

And we have, we have places that do that, but looking at our salary schedule as well.

So very, very similar work that we're doing both places.

- And, and I think another important part of this conversation is helping college students or people who are considering maybe going back to school and becoming a teacher to understand what the total compensation package it.

So that's how we do it in the private sector, right?

You here's your total compensation.

We don't, we don't talk about teacher pay in that way.

And so in North Carolina, when you factor in free healthcare and retirement, a pension, which so few people have access to today to, to a pension, you're talking about a $16,000 benefit on top of the pay that they're receiving.

- And the annual pay on tops is?

- Okay, well, go ahead.

- Well, I'll just mention one thing too.

Many of our colleges and universities, I guess will be the same.

We're also looking at those folks and I, again, I have a real burden for the rural areas, but for those folks who work as teacher aides, or maybe even bus drivers, cafeteria workers, who never had the opportunity to go to college, working with them to offer specialized programs that they can earn their four-year degree and their teacher certification close to free, if not free, very, very minimal charges working with them virtually.

And then on Saturday classes, because those folks already do live in the rural areas, they will always live in the rural areas and we got, we got to find, grow your own or close.

- You took the words right out of my mouth.

- So we're, we're, we're working on that.

University of South Carolina, now we offer a (indistinct) at a college, a full virtual program that has education offerings as well as many of our other colleges that have specialized programs.

And we're supporting that now with our ESSER funding, the federal dollars that we have available.

- You all sound surprisingly, and again, this is my point of view, but surprisingly optimistic about teachers.

If you are a general consumer of the news media, or you're a parent, or you're someone that doesn't really pay attention to the educational industry, you would think that teachers were completely traumatized and eviscerated by what has gone on.

And it seems like there's some truth in there, but Superintendent Truitt, how do you, how much factor does this emotional trauma take on teachers?

And how much would you say you would blame that for those that are just plain flat leaving teaching.

- We had a, an older teaching workforce.

And so that has led to early retirements, just like in all other industries with, with the great resignation, lots of people taking, taking the opportunity to retire because they can.

I think that yes, teachers have just overcome insurmountable challenges over the past couple of years, but I don't know that we can, that we can categorize teachers into, or, or, you know, a, a sign say that all teachers are this, that, or the other, because it was so, the pandemic was different in so many different communities.

It looked very different in the Western part of the state versus our more urban areas.

And the other thing that I'll say is that the culture of a school as established by the, that, that school's leadership is so essential to whether or not a teacher decides to stay or go.

And so we have a lot of principals who, you know, principals are such unsung heroes in, in all of this.

I can't even imagine, you know, Molly and I were both teachers.

I've never been a principal.

Have you been a principal?

- Assistant principal.

- I can't imagine what it would have been like to be a local superintendent or a local principal during this pandemic.

So I think, I think that our teachers are resilient.

I think that because it's a calling that teachers by and large will stay in the profession, do what they love to do and hope that maybe some things will, will change for the better.

- Are there, AP and the principals and local superintendents, is the turnover higher in those positions?

- I don't really know, but I'll tell you this.

And Catherine's so correct.

I had a meeting recently with about 15 principals from across the state, and these were the most outstanding principals.

And I had for, I had really forgotten about how hard it must be on them, because guess what?

They were the caretakers.

- That's right.

- If you've ever been a caretaker, you understand the extra stress.

And they expressed that to me, there were tears that flowed the stories that they told, but the resiliency that they had, they have been taking care of their community, including the teachers and the parents and -- - Feeding people.

Feeding the community.

- And one of them told me, he said, you know, the most important thing that we had done, he said, we'd already.

And this is, was a principal of a large high school in the Greenville area, who said, we had already planned to do something, to support our students emotionally pre-pandemic.

And they put it in place this past year of taking one hour a week where they stop everything.

And the students sit down around a table and talk.

And he said, it's the most important thing we've ever done.

And it was so needed and it just happened.

But he said, this is the most important hour in our week now, but Catherine's right.

The principal sets the tone.

They're the unsung heroes that we forget to talk about.

We talk about the teachers, but hats off to the principals.

They have really done a remarkable job.

And I don't know that there's any extra flight out of the profession.

You hear a lot about it of some obviously, with the great resignation, but I think we get so much of our information now from social media.

And we have to pull back a lot because every school I've been in, the teachers are, are happy.

They're tired, but they're happy.

They're dedicated.

And that, that excitement is still there in the school.

- I will say it's important to add, I don't know about in South Carolina, but in North Carolina, the average tenure of a superintendent, a local superintendent is 18 months.

We have a lot of turnover.

- That's kind of a temporary posting actually at that.

- Yes.

And that is incredibly, that churn is very disruptive, especially in our smaller communities.

- The last time you were on, you were decidedly and this wasn't just me, but this was the crew that said, was she more worried about violence, school violence?

- Wow.

- And you were you, and we've had reports of superintendents who need security.

- Oh yeah.

- How distressing is this?

Give us an idea, anecdotally, what kind of violence we're talking about besides somebody walks in with a gun?

- Right.

And at the time I think it was probably, there probably had been a recent school shooting, more guns.

And we certainly have seen that more guns coming to school.

And I think also the emotions of this last year with the anti-masking and anti-vaccine and folks coming to school board meetings, which we, we applaud parents.

We want parents to be involved.

We want their opinion, but all of us need to do it in a civil way.

And things really did get out of hand there for a while.

And we, we had to have security, extra police come in, even at the end of school, when we changed from masks required to masks not required.

We, it was very chaotic and school board meetings where we have had to have superintendents and staff escorted home with police protection because the emotions got so high.

I, that's calming down somewhat.

And that's a good thing.

People need to take a deep breath.

And so I have been very concerned about it, and in fact, I'm honored to serve as the president of CCSSO.

Our national association of state school chiefs, and I talked about that when I did my acceptance speech, that we all really need all of us as leaders and to parents, and we need to teach our children too, really just go back to the Golden Rule.

Treat others as we want to be treated, to have that respect.

That's one of our roles as educators to teach good character, life skills of having, having respect for each other.

And we've gotten away from a lot of that.

- Is that your, excuse me, sorry, is that your experience in North Carolina about the school violence?

- So we have absolutely seen more guns coming to school.

We, there it's been quiet lately, but for a few months there, there were quite a few instances.

So Charlotte Mecklenburg schools just launched the Say Something app, I think last week, which is the anonymous way that students can report incidences as they're occurring or things that they're worried might occur.

So things can be headed off at the pass.

So, but, you know, Rowan Salisbury schools just approved metal detectors for all their football and basketball games.

- But that seems more the norm now than it is the standard about metal detectors or some type of security screening.

Would that be fair to say?

Sure.

- We've got about eight minutes left.

I want to unpack the idea of we're talking around impact on people's lives, which leads right to mental health, mental health of students.

As you mentioned earlier, mental health of teachers, staff, administrators.

What, what is the status of mental health in the system now?

- Well, our folks need a lot of support, our teachers and our students.

- Emotionally?

- Emotional support.

So we are working harder than ever with partnering with our Department of Mental Health, Department of social services to make sure that every student has access to mental health support.

Always have been working toward that, but that the need is so, so strong now.

We're using our ESSER funds, Which we really haven't talked about that, but this influx of federal dollars and one of the allowable expenditures is in social, emotional, mental health support.

So hiring more mental health counselors, having them available for students, making sure, working with Department of Health services, that insurance coverage is there.

So there, there are a lot, there's very complex making sure that the Medicaid services pay for the, the services that our students need.

So lots of partnerships, we're using our ESSER dollars to hire more mental health counselors.

We even had to give money to our Department of Health to run the suicide prevention hotline.

We had so many calls coming in that those calls were being diverted to other states.

So we we've helped, assisted with that.

We also have hired a for the first time ever, I have a director of social, emotional health at the Department of Education who is working directly with teachers.

We're working with private groups who do support, like, you know, the Stephen Covey program, the John Maxwell I Choose program.

All, all these types of programs that we can have in the schools.

Every, every school really should have something that they're doing to make sure that students have a chance to talk, have a, have a way to reflect on their attitudes and, and really that support network within their school.

- You were a legislator, you know how difficult it is to battle for dollars for all types of needs when you're in the general assembly or the state house.

And, and, and again, this is the way I describe it.

Promise I'm going to give you a chance to this question.

It's hard that mental health was for a long time no champions, the redheaded stepchild.

Don't talk to me about funding mental health.

Is that an easier conversation?

And do you feel like the state house is more inclined?

- Yes.

In fact, Governor McMaster last week in his state of the state address mentioned it and called for our agencies to work together to make sure that we were doing a better job, a very efficient job, providing behavioral health support, mental health support.

So yes, it's much easier to talk about, but still it can get tied up in, in the rhetoric.

And we have to be very, very careful that families are involved and that they understand what we are trying to do.

- How would you describe North Carolina's interaction with mental health, as it of dynamic within education.

- Prior to the pandemic, we looked at our ratios of students to school nurses, students to school psychologists, social workers, all of that school support staff and our ratios are, are, are off.

I mean, we just don't have enough.

I would say it's, it's kind of a chicken and the egg situation, because even if we have the funding, we have a lot of places where there wouldn't be social workers to hire.

So this is another pipeline that we need to fill.

So the legislature actually appropriated money for a school psychology position at the department and money to help us start, start building that, that pipeline.

If we can attract people to North Carolina who are doing their required clinicals, that, that all school psychologists must do, regardless of their program in the United States, then, then perhaps they'll stay.

And so we want to create paid internships for school psychologists, because typically those internships are not paid for.

But yeah, this is again, one of those issues that was true before the pandemic and has been exacerbated by the pandemic.

- Non-reoccurring federal support that the state, both states have gotten in response to COVID, you're using those funds for.

- Yeah.

In part I'm one of the things that we would like.

So, so first of all, the, the federal, 90% of the federal dollars goes to the school districts and they choose how they're going to spend.

That's exactly right.

That's exactly right.

And one of the things that, I started something called the office of learning recovery and acceleration.

And one of the things that that office is looking at doing is partnering with our smaller districts that have less capacity in their central office to perhaps figure out the best way to spend this money.

And one of the things we're looking is telehealth in our schools.

We have a couple of pilots right now where we have found that tele-health, both for physical and mental health will actually cut down on chronic absenteeism and ensure that students are safer at school.

- So direct, direct, direct benefit.

We do this and it cuts down on that.

- Correct.

- Okay.

We've got about a minute.

- Okay.

And I'll just say, this is another area that has grown during the pandemic with virtual, with us using tele-psychiatry, working with the Medical University of South Carolina in our rural areas where there was no psychologist or.

- Exactly.

- But now we, I know that pre-pandemic year, we did 100,000 visits with a psychiatrist for students in South Carolina through telehealth.

- 30 seconds.

Madam Spearman, is you think virtual classrooms are here to stay and will always be part of education?

- Yes.

- To what percentage?

30%, 20%, half.

- I think all students should have some type of virtual experience.

- What do you think?

- I 100% agree.

Only 30% of students in North Carolina have a fully licensed math teacher.

Virtual instruction is a way to fix that.

- Superintendent Truitt.

That's the last word.

Thank you for being on the program.

- Thank you.

Superintendent Spearman.

Thank you.

And best of luck in your next iteration in leadership.

I know, I know it'll be great, but thank you both and stay safe.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

We'd also like to thank Melvin Rash at Education NC, an exceptional organization in North Carolina, full disclosure.

I am on that board, but I'm on that board because I've seen the value of it, but we'd like to thank them in help with this program.

And we'd like to thank you for supporting this dialogue.

We're back in the studio.

Hopefully more than virtual.

Virtual is fun, but it's not as fun as this.

Thank you for watching our program.

Again, if you have any questions or comments, Carolinabusinessreview.org.

- Major funding for Carolina Business Review provided by High Point University, Martin Marietta, Colonial Life, The Duke Endowment, Sonoco, Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina.

And by viewers like you, thank you.

For more information, visit Carolinabusinessreview.org.

(energetic music)