• Return control of the school calendar year to local school boards,

• Exempt school systems from paying sales tax, and

• Repeal the state law that allows certain out-of-state college students to be classified as in-state for tuition purposes.

Earlier this month the school board and Supt. Dr. Larry W. Cartner met with local state legislators to ask for their support on those matters. And during last week’s regular meeting, the board adopted three resolutions endorsing support for the North Carolina School Boards Association’s (NCSBA) efforts to get the Legislature to reverse the three statutes.

In 1998, the North Carolina General Assembly granted public school systems the right to apply for a refund of sales taxes they paid on tangible goods, but that legislation was rescinded in 2005. The Person board and the NCSBA want to see a return to either sales tax refunds or tax-exempt status for public schools.

During the Dec. 5 meeting between the school board, school system administration and state legislators, school board Chairman Gordon Powell said that the schools here were working hard to secure more revenue for operating expenses in the face of what the school board sees as a shortage of local funding. Powell told state Rep. W.A. (Winkie) Wilkins (D-Person) and Sen. Ellie Kinnaird (D-Orange) that sales taxes cost Person County Schools $74,600 in 2005-06 and $92,600 in 2006-07.

“That equates to at least five local” teaching positions, Powell said.

Kinnaird and Wilkins said they would work to return the schools to tax-exempt status.

Another matter discussed in the Dec. 5 meeting and at last week’s school board meeting was the state law that establishes when public schools can begin and end the academic year. In 2004, after intense lobbying from parents and tourism groups, a law was passed that made it illegal for public schools to begin their academic year before Aug. 25 or end classes by June 10 each year.

Person County Schools, and other systems, want enough flexibility to start the year in time to get exams out of the way before the winter break each year. Aside from declining scores, according to school board members and PCS administrators, scheduling classes for the 300-plus Person High School students who take advantage of a program that allows them to gain college credit at Piedmont Community College before they graduate high school has become a logistical nightmare.

"We need to get our final exams in before Christmas," insisted school board Vice Chairman Jimmy Wilkins. "It’s causing us a tremendous amount of problems."

The resolution adopted last week by the school board states that the board “respectfully requests the North Carolina General Assembly to grant local boards of education flexibility through” House Bill “359 Restore Flexibility to the School Calendar” because “the current calendars for high schools, community colleges and universities are out of alignment by approximately two weeks, causing scheduling problems for dual enrollment and Huskins [Bill] students. College courses begin before high school students complete their final exams in January and the current calendar has led to a decrease in the amount of instructional time students have before taking Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests.”

The current school calendar “does not allow the fall semester to be completed before the winter break,” according to the resolution, “thus forcing exams to be after the break.”

Returning flexibility to the calendar would also allow school districts more days that could be scheduled as inclement weather make-up days and allow for more school reform options, according to the resolution.

The third resolution adopted by the Person County Board of Education states: “456 out-of-state students at 14 of the University of North Carolina institutions qualified” for in-state tuition rates during the 2006-07 academic year. According to the resolution, 70.4 percent of those students were on athletic scholarships and nearly 30 percent were on academic scholarships.

The four-year project cost of the tuition discount, the NCSBA claims, will be at least $16.4 million a year from 2009-2010. “This statute takes available spaces from North Carolina students and shifts tax dollars to out-of-state students,” the resolution states.