Pender County sees rise in student numbers, while hiring freeze stays

Even with the school year about to start next week, board members in Pender County are still crunching the budget to save jobs.

Eleven teacher assistant positions and a number of teaching positions are still vacant due to a hiring freeze. Administrators want to fill them, because 200 more students have enrolled in the county; equivalent to about 8 to 10 teaching positions. With less money in the budget class sizes will have to go up.

“We are probably going to look at the teachers first because of our class-size inadequacies. Once we do that, if there are any emergency funds available we are going to try to bring some of those teacher assistants back,” said Pender County School Board Chair Tom Roper.

The district now has to figure out how to serve 8,000 students, with only 383 teachers.