LAURINBURG — Approximately $560,000,000 in federal funds are provided to districts and schools every year, but in order to receive the funding, schools must go through a monitoring cycle.

Scotland County Schools went through the monitoring process for a week in early March. During Monday night’s Board of Education meeting, Director of Federal Programs Barbara Adams gave the Cross-Consolidated Federal Programs Monitoring Report.

“The monitoring cycle happens every four years in the state of North Carolina,” Adams said. “And the rotation can actually vary, meaning that Scotland County was in the last cycle which was year four but it doesn’t mean we won’t be in year one of the rotation … we had a total of 42 elements that we could have been monitored on and, out of those 42 elements, there were 30 that were applicable to Scotland County Schools.”

There were four programs the school system was monitored in: Title I, Title II, Title IV and Title V. The schools that participated were Laurel Hill Elementary, South Johnson, Sycamore Lane Primary, Sycamore Lane Elementary, Wagram Elementary, Carver Middle School and Spring Hill Middle School.

“Within that process, we had the interview process which was selected by DPI,” Adams said. “Although all the schools went through the element artifact participation piece of it the interview process was a selection by DPI and we did not know who would be selected until about a week before.”

Adams added that the school met all 30 of the requirements, which meant the school system had provided all the documents, the interview teams were rated excellent and processes and implementation were consistent throughout the district. Despite scoring the 100%, there were recommendations given to the school system.

“You can’t have a monitoring visit without recommendations,” Adams said. “The one thing I can say with the recommendations that came forth from our monitoring visit was that they’re pretty consistent with some of the areas in our district that we know we need some improvement like parent and family engagement.”

Recommendations included making sure the schools are getting the parent feedback and getting them more involved. Other recommendations included making sure there were multiple formats and languages available for certain populations to make sure the entire population is reached along with providing services to migratory children.

“Right now in Scotland County, we do not have what we call a sub-group of migratory students,” Adams said. “But one of the things that came out of the monitoring visit was to make sure that we reach that population and one of the things that were suggested was a consultation with a migrant rep from DPI.”

Adams added that the district currently has a total of 15 migratory students in the district but a sub-group requires there to be at least 50 students. The board asked how these students were served in the district and Adams explained that because there wasn’t a subgroup in the county a regional representative makes sure the students have what they need.

There was no indication whether Scotland County Schools would be receiving any of the funding.

Reach Katelin Gandee at [email protected]. To support The Laurinburg Exchange, subscribe here: https://laurinburgexch.wpenginepowered.com/subscribe.