Pender County Board of Education approves amended agenda; hears updates on budget, calendar, policies and major purchases

The Pender County Board of Education’s Committee of the Whole approved the meeting agenda after a motion to remove agenda item 6.2, which concerned aligning pre-K with the elementary proposal. The board heard detailed reports on district finances and procurement, multiple policy revisions recommended for the March 11 consent agenda, draft calendars for the 2026–27 school year, a strategic-plan update and the district’s summer-learning program and partner camps.

The vote to amend and approve the agenda — “approve the agenda with the elimination of item 6.2, alignment of pre k to elementary proposal” — was made on the floor and approved by voice vote. The board then proceeded to briefings and discussion items, with no other final actions taken on policy or procurement items at that meeting.

Why it matters: The meeting covered several items that will return to the board for formal action, including requests to spend county-allocated funds on Chromebooks, a Microsoft licensing renewal, a server-cluster refresh, and multiple policy items that affect graduation credits, credit recovery and athletic eligibility. The calendar discussion included a superintendent recommendation to increase instructional days and shift work days to reduce semester imbalance — changes that, if adopted, would affect students, staff and community schedules districtwide.

Finance and budget highlights Miss Nowen, presenting the financial report, said the district is roughly 58% expended for the year and showed a PRC (program) balance at about 58.94% expended. She reported a discrepancy in reported kilowatt-hour figures between prior-year and current-year records and said staff will work with the vendor and accounts payable to resolve whether data was omitted or misfiled during a vendor change and re-upload process. “Sometimes it could be a technical issue,” she told the board.

Nowen said the state Department of Public Instruction changed financial software on its side and that transition has required local offices and…