The North Carolina General Assembly, in an effort to address potential budget cuts, proposed the elimination of all state funding for the North Carolina Governor’s School.
Governor’s School is an annual six-week program started in 1963. It offers academic concentrations, including the sciences and Spanish, as well as artistic concentrations such as music and dance.
The state currently provides the program with $849,588 every year, thereby ensuring the program will be of no cost to participants. But students may be required to pay to attend if the General Assembly follows through with its proposal to cut its funding completely to cut costs for the state.
While nothing has officially been passed, many alumni of the program have vocally expressed their disapproval with the idea.
“A lot of alumni have spoken out against this idea. We just want to show the state how essential this program is,” said Dominique Beaudry, ’09 Governor’s School alum and current student at the North Carolina School of Science and Math.
Mary Watson, director of Governor’s School, said it would be a mistake for the state to take away the already limited funding from the program. Last year, for the first time in the history of the program, students had to pay tuition as a result of the initial state cut.
“It would be a terrible mistake for our economy to cut funding for this. This program benefits some of our brightest students,” Watson said. “We have received letters from students who have become successful all over the country in support of the program.”
Many organizations in North Carolina have created scholarship funds to help those students who are unable to pay the tuition to attend the program. According to Beaudry, the socioeconomic diversity of the program has decreased immensely since the tuition was instituted and said it will only decrease more if more funding is discontinued.
“We understand that budget cuts are happening everywhere, but this program is important,” Beaudry said. “We want to maintain it at all costs, even if we have to compromise by accepting less students or limiting the campuses.”
Alex Grindstaff, a junior in biological sciences and ’08 Governor’s School alumnus, said the program was an extremely influential experience, and said it gave him an opportunity to meet people from North Carolina who had similar aspirations.
“I’m from a small part of western North Carolina, so I really had no worldly experiences,” Grindstaff said. “This [Governor’s School] gave me the chance to meet people who are like-minded, who loved learning for the sake of learning.”
While Watson said the program is dependent on state funding, organizers are continuing the planning for the current summer as if the funding will still be intact.
The program does not currently have an alternative plan in the event that the state funding is taken away.
Though the General Assembly has been considering this complete cut in funding for the program, Gov. Beverly Perdue is not considering such an option. According to Chris Mackey, Gov. Perdue’s press secretary, Perdue does not want to cut funding for the program.
“The Governor has done all she can to hold down the education system in North Carolina,” Mackey said. “There are no cuts for this in her budget.”
Despite Mackey’s assurances, alumni and students are organizing protests in reaction to the program’s plight. Several groups created Facebook pages for the protests, and students at UNC-Chapel Hill have started a petition, according to Beaudry.
No representatives from the General Assembly were available to comment on this issue at press time. All maintained that the cuts were not official and are subject to change.
