When MC Belk Pilon and her team at the John M. Belk Endowment began visiting the 58 community colleges, she said she realized that in the communities that were the most innovative, there was a common denominator.
In those communities, the relationships between the superintendents and community college presidents were the tightest, leading to the strongest initiatives and collective leadership.
Last week, superintendents and presidents of community colleges met for their fifth annual convening, and it focused on strengthening those relationships.
David Heatherly, the president of the North Carolina Association of Community College Presidents, said leaders continue to focus on creating opportunities for our students even given all of the challenges they are facing.
Don Phipps, the president of the NC School Superintendents’ Association, outlined those opportunities, noting strong partnerships between K-12 and community colleges strengthens Career and College Promise (CCP), apprenticeships, and seamless pathways for students through college readiness, academic support, and strategic planning.
Superintendents and presidents also heard from state leaders.
Jeff Cox, a former superintendent and community college president and now the president of the N.C. Community College System, stressed the importance of building relationships between K-12 and the community colleges because it matters to our state”s workforce.
“Everywhere I go, workforce and the workforce pipeline seems to be top of mind. That’s true at the legislature. It’s true with business and industry,” said Cox.
Maurice “Mo” Green, the new state superintendent of public instruction, said he wants to “help our children see tomorrow today, connecting our work in ways that will allow us to do amazing things for young people, and in turn for their families, their communities, the economy, the state, and beyond.”
These relationships matter on the good days, and they matter even more on the bad days.
At the convening, superintendents and the president of the community college serving their county talked about lessons learned from natural disasters and heard about the economic reality of education.
Lessons learned from natural disasters and crises
Rob Jackson, the superintendent of Buncombe County Schools, said officials told him recently that Hurricane Helene was three times worse than the worst natural disaster in North Carolina.
He and Eisa Cox, the superintendent of Ashe County Schools, walked superintendents and community college presidents through the first 72 hours of the storm.
Jackson said the first learning is “hurricanes can happen anywhere in North Carolina.”
Tracy Mancini, the president of Carteret Community College on the coast, said the most important thing is to have a plan. “That act of leadership is incredibly important in a crisis,” she said.
Leaders described the first 72 hours as a blur, exacerbated by the lack of communications. It took many districts and colleges two weeks to have an accurate assessment of the damage and need.
During that time, the role of school and community colleges was evolving day to day.
John Gossett, the president of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College (A-B Tech), said, “The more you can tell your county yes, the better.”
“A lot was happening at A-B Tech in the aftermath of the storm,” said Gossett. “At first, none of it had to do with education.”
Going forward, districts and community colleges understand better the role they are expected to play in rescue, relief, and recovery phases of a natural disaster.
Superintendents and community college presidents shared lessons learned, best practices, and preparedness moving forward, including the use of storm teams, hard copies/hard drives of key documents including the physical address of leaders, knowing your resources including vendors ahead of the storm, and the need for generators, Starlinks, and fuel.
Leaders in western North Carolina discussed the anticipated spike in mental health as the six-month anniversary of the storm approaches and how they are planning to support their communities.
Lew Hunnicutt, the president of Nash Community College, and Tony Jackson, the superintendent of Chatham County Schools, discussed how mental health services can be provided to students and educators.
The economic realities in and out of public education
Laura Ullrich is a senior regional economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, which she says studies how students get from K-12 education to a job and how to make that journey more efficient.
She provided a keynote address — based on her own economic views, not her employers’ — about the economic realities facing superintendents and community college presidents in and out of public education.
The short story, she said, is labor is tight right now, and she expects it to stay that way unless there is a significant downturn in the economy.
Tom Barkin, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, recently wrote about community colleges and said, “Even as overall labor market conditions have normalized over the past year, employers in the skilled trades continue to report a lack of available workers. The overall supply of workers has improved, but the supply of workers with the right skills remains limited.”
He calls community colleges “the utility player of workforce development, able to fill a role at every stage of the talent pipeline.”Â
To date, the foundation of that pipeline has been public schools.
Ullrich said the expansion of school choice and voucher programs could challenge current funding models, which were premised on public schools serving the vast majority of students.
According to Ullrich, North Carolina is leading the way on dual enrollment.
“These are intentional partnerships. You can make big differences here,” she said.
You can see the data on dual enrollment and more in the recently released 2024 Survey of Community College Outcomes.
For more information about the convening, here is the summary provided by RTI International.
Editor’s Note: The John M. Belk Endowment supports the work of EdNC. Dr. Anthony Jackson serves on our board of directors.
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