Bill seeks to speed Wake schools' hunt for university partnership with leadership academies
One of the first bills filed in North Carolina’s 2024 legislative session is a bipartisan effort to give more options to students in the Wake County Public School System’s leadership academies following the system board’s decision to end the programs’ agreement with Saint Augustine’s University.
The leadership academies allow high school students to take classes on a college campus, earning higher education credits. Those credits can help them earn an associates degree while still in high school, or be able to save money in a bachelor’s degree program by graduating early.
For years the academies have been run in partnership with Saint Augustine’s University. But the Wake County school board voted last month to end the partnership with the Raleigh university, which is fighting to keep its accreditation amid scrutiny over its finances.
Many of the 150 high school students in the program say they plan to transfer or graduate early, even though that could jeopardize their college plans, WRAL reported last month.
A group of state lawmakers from Wake County, led by Republican Rep. Erin Paré, are now trying to give them another option. She sponsored a bill Wednesday that would fast-track the process for letting Wake school leaders pick another partner.
One of the main concerns parents have about the canceled partnership is a new commute, Paré told WRAL. Wake Schools leaders are moving the program to Wake Technical Community College’s campus in North Raleigh for the upcoming school year. For families on the southern end of the county that she represents in the legislature, that means an hour commute both ways, Paré said, .
The idea behind Paré’s proposal, House Bill 900, is to accelerate the normal process for the school system to choose another partner — in addition to Wake Tech — for the leadership academies. It would normally take at least a year, Paré said, but her bill would eliminate that and let the process happen more or less instantly. The legislature wouldn’t pick the new college for the school system to partner with; that would be up to Wake schools leaders. But it would allow the choice to be made in time for the upcoming school year — if the bill passes quickly.
“There are some families who would find it impossible to carry on with the current location,” she said.
Robert Gibson, a Fuquay-Varina resident whose son attends the leadership academy, said the whole family is struggling not just with the potential commute but also with changing the coursework from a university setting to a community college.
“Does anyone really want a 17-year-old on the road for 45 or 50 minutes during the morning rush hour?” said Gibson, whose son is a rising senior. “So that’s a concern. But also you have the alignment of classes.”
He’s not against community colleges, but it’s just not the direction his son was hoping to go in as he prepares for college, he said in an interview Wednesday.
Lisa Luten, spokeswoman for the Wake school system, said the district didn’t request the bill but is aware of it. System leaders haven’t yet settled on which local college or university they’d try to partner with, if the legislation does pass, she said.
Gibson said he hopes they choose one that will be able to carry on the full original mission of the program. “They made a promise to this group of students and their parents,” he said. “And to me it’s real simple: You have to keep your word.”
Paré said that for the plan to work, the legislature will need to pass her bill quickly so that the school system has as much time as possible for its own work. But she made a concerted effort to work with leadership in both chambers of the legislature to let them know and try to make sure there wasn’t opposition, she said, as well as to bring Democrats on board. The bill’s other sponsors are Wake County Democratic Reps. Ya Liu, Sarah Crawford and Maria Cervania.
Saint Augustine’s has struggled to pay its bills and faces imminent, existential challenges — leading to complaints from its own faculty, staff and students, as well as the Wake County high school students enrolled in the leadership academies.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges revoked Saint Augustine’s accreditation in December over financial troubles and allegations of improper accounting at the university, which at times has been late to pay staff and faces property liens and millions of dollars in debt. For now, though, the university is still technically accredited as it undergoes arbitration over the revocation.
WRAL education reporter Emily Walkenhorst contributed reporting.
