Denita Dowell-Reavis
The Alexander County Board of Education held its regularly scheduled meeting for October on the 13th. The meeting opened with the pledge led by board member Robert Arguelles.
Honors and Recognitions
Dr. Denita Dowell-Reavis opened the regular meeting with recognition for teachers and staff who earned their local endorsement for teaching Academically and Intellectually Gifted students over the summer. The staff members completed an estimated 60 hours of work through the Northwest RESA. The studies included lesson planning and differentiation for high-performing students. Adding to the number of certified AIG teachers is one of Alexander County Schools’ goals in the district’s AIG plan.
Lauren Dula – Stony Point Elementary School
Christina Lusk – Alexander Central High School
Savannah “Paige” Jackson – Alexander Central High School
Caitlin Davis – Bethlehem Elementary School
Taylor Gallyon – East Alexander Middle School
Heather Brashear – Alexander Central High School
Michelle Robinson – West Alexander Middle School
Tina Walker – East Alexander Middle School
Kim Hertzler- Bethlehem Elementary School
Finance Report
Finance Director Sharon Mehaffey presented the 2025-26 school budget. The total budget is $60,378,765 with 69% of the funds coming from the state of North Carolina ($41,661,348). The majority of the money, or 84 percent, in the district budget goes to pay teacher salaries and benefits. Mehaffey noted the cost of health insurance and retirement for each staff member has increased.
Alexander County Schools did lose more than $500,000 from the state in low wealth funding. The state sets low wealth amounts based on the county’s tax rate, economic investment, and job diversity. The Alexander County Commission agreed to pick up the loss in state funding by increasing the county funding by $585,000 for 2025-26. The local increase puts the district back on level footing. Total local funding for the schools is $8.2 million dollars or about 14% of the total budget. Superintendent Dr. Bill Griffin and the board publicly thanked the commission for the funds during Mehaffey’s presentation.
Federal funding is nearly $3.5 million dollars with a bit more money coming to the district for the year to fund summer programs.
The capital outlay budget is slightly more than $3.1 million dollars.
Other local revenue coming from grants, reimbursements, fees, interests and more totals more than $4.5 million dollars.
Lastly, the budget for Child Nutrition is $3,880,750.
Overall the district budget is about three million dollars less compared to the 2024-25 school year. The decrease is largely due to the spending of state grant money for the Sugar Loaf gymnasium and media center and turf for the ACHS football field. Those funds were spent to complete those projects.
The 2025-26 budget report comes on the heels of a district annual audit that gave the county school system a clean report. The district has had clean audits consecutively for at least 26 years.
The auditor credited a reduction in force in Spring of 2024 with adding back to the district’s fund balance, a savings account, by $384,355. Certified Public Accountant Shannon Dennison says , “The fund balance in the General Fund was $1,480,339 on June 30, 2025.”
She added, “In anticipation of a decrease in fund balance, Alexander County Schools implemented a reduction in force in June 2024 to alleviate the use of fund balance for continuing expenditures.”
Superintendent Dr. Bill Griffin, who took his position in July 2024, had talked directly with school staff and stakeholders to emphasize the district needed to keep spending within allotted funding. He’d said, “We need to live within our means,” as he visited schools across the district in his first months. He and the board members said they are grateful the district did not have to dip into fund balance to finish the 2024-2025 school year and were able to add some money back. Griffin reported that the fund balance has now returned to nearly $1.5 million.
Griffin said, “We put some things in place. We caused some schools and departments to be uncomfortable.” He added that the district has now had a $1,193,759 turnaround in the fund balance.
District and elected leaders had feared the fund balance would drop last year when ACS lost more than 100 students in 2023-24. The district spent $809,404 in fund balance in 2023-24 to balance that year’s budget.
“We were told that if we didn’t make some tough decisions and do things a little differently that we would be bankrupt in a year,” said Griffin.
For 2024-25, ACS was able to streamline to avoid further cuts.
Griffin said he knows some school staff members felt the belt-tightening and thanked them for the sacrifices to shape up the budget. Board member Anthony McLain echoed Griffin’s gratitude towards staff.
“This work was down in the trenches,” said McLain.
Griffin concluded saying he was pleased to “Get to a place where we are healthy and stable and operating with the number of students we have each year. Understand that we’ve followed our vision and mission that we are the educational choice for each child in this county.”
Board Chair Matt Reese said, “Our decisions were not popular but we have to look at the long-term effect, so that as Dr. Griffin said this school system will be around for a long time.”
Griffin and board members said they were pleased that the district is healthy financially and is moving in the right direction.
School Board Policies
Assistant Superintendent Dr. Alisha Cloer presented a second reading for five policies which were approved unanimously.
Policy No. 6220 – Operation of School Nutrition Services
Policy No. 6330 – Insurance for Student Transportation
Policy 7130 – Licensure
Policy 7820 – Personnel Files
Policy 9210 – Care and Maintenance of Grounds and Outdoor Equipment
Cloer also presented proposed revisions for nine policies which will stand for a month while the public and board members have time to review for comment.
Policy 1300 – Governing Principle – Parental Involvement
Policy 1500 – Governing Principle – Safe, Orderly, and Inviting Environment
Policy 1600 – Governing Principle – Professional Development
Policy 1700 – Governing Principle – Removal of Barriers
Policy 1742/5060 – Responding to Complaints
Policy 4331 – Assaults and Threats
Policy 7100 – Recruitment and Selection of Personnel
Policy 7335 – Employee Use of Social Media
Policy 7340 – Employee Dress and Appearance