NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 16, 2000

TOWN REACHES DECISION ON FUNDING NON-PUBLIC, HOME SCHOOL NEEDS

CARY, NC – The Town of Cary has settled on an internal review process for private and home schools that want a piece of Cary’s "education funding for economic development" pie. Proposals meeting minimum requirements will be reviewed by a panel of Town officials including the Town Manager, Assistant Town Manager, Budget Director, Finance Director, Parks, Recreation, & Cultural Resources Director, and one-two Town Council members. The Town has signed a contract with Wake Education Partnership to handle requests from the Wake County Public School Systems and the 13 charter schools in Wake County. There are about 20,500 Cary school children in Wake County. About 18,500, or 90 percent, of these attend public schools.

NON-PUBLICS
Since the relevant data is not collected by the State or Wake County, Cary has for the last several months been seeking enrollment information from individual private and religious schools to determine which of the 37 schools in Wake County have the required 30-Cary-student minimum, but that information has been slow to arrive.

"We really need for interested schools to respond to our requests for enrollment data if they want to receive an application this year for possible funding," said Town Manager Bill Coleman. Coleman noted that the Town would be sending another written request to the schools this week. Once the Town receives the enrollment figures, they will forward to each school an application for funding. Requests will be reviewed on the same basis used by the Wake Education Partnership.

To avoid any legal problems, parochial and private schools will also sign an expenditure contract to ensure that the funds are used solely for clear educational purposes and not to promote religion or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin. The Town will receive an independent audit of the expenditure of these funds.

HOME
Since home schools usually involve only one or two students—not meeting the 30-student threshold-- and given that verifying improvement in achievement on an individual household basis would be extremely difficult, the Town has decided to give education funding that would be allocated for these students to the Wake County Public Library based on package proposals submitted by groups of Cary home schools. It is up to the individual home schools to unite and submit requests.

This "first of its kind in the State economic development through education" initiative is part of this year’s Town of Cary operating budget in which Council appropriated $3.7 million—or, about $200 per child--for its 2000-2001 Fiscal Year to enhance educational opportunities for school students who reside in the Town. Town officials hope to have checks to qualifying schools by this Thanksgiving.

For more information, visit the Town’s website at www.townofcary.org.

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PRIMARY CONTACTS:

Bill Coleman, Town Manager, 469-4002
Tony Habit, WEP, 821-7609
Susan Moran, Public Information Officer, 460-4951