A Voices on the Ground Local Impact Update
This is a challenging time for our Forsyth County schools and concerned community.
As our students and teachers prepared to return to the classroom this fall, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools announced it was facing a $46 million budget deficit. This massive school district budget shortfall required responsive collective action from philanthropy, local government and the larger community. The Trust recently made two grants totaling $1 million to help the district pay back debt and to ensure every school received its full supply budget.
This crisis propelled the Forsyth County community into action.
We asked a few grantees to share how the local public school budget crisis is impacting their efforts, what they’re doing differently to respond, and where they find resilience and hope.
Action for Equity
Hayley Lampkin Blyth
Director of Justice EmpowerED
Action4Equity
Action4Equity works in solidarity with communities to activate systems change and shift policies, practices, and power structures, so that every Black child thrives in Forsyth County. Education attorney Hayley Lampkin Blyth leads the organization’s legal and education rights work. She directs the Justice EmpowerED program that provides free legal services and training for local public school students and families, as well as community partners.
Q: How is this education crisis impacting your community and efforts to serve?
A: “The crisis that we see in the funding in Forsyth County schools right now, while it has to do with some financial mismanagement that’s happened, it also really has to do with the chronic systemic underfunding of our public school system. And we know that whenever public schools are underfunded, historically marginalized communities—Black students, students of color, low-income students, and students with disabilities—stand to lose the most.“
Q: What are you doing to meet this challenging moment?
A: “We began the Justice EmpowerED Program as this crisis unfolded. Regardless of the district’s financial position, students have legal rights in public education. Students have a right to a sound basic education, they have a right to due process, they have a right to be free from discrimination, and students with disabilities have a right to a free appropriate public education. Justice EmpowerED is here to partner with the community to defend those rights for every child in public school in Forsyth County.”
Boston-Thurmond United
Regina Hall
Executive Director
Boston Thurmond-United
Boston-Thurmond United is a community-based network that partners with residents to work for a strong and economically viable neighborhood, led by Executive Director Regina Hall. This community network uses a Purpose Built Communities model that focuses on long-term solutions including a cradle-to-career educational pipeline of excellence, and a community health and wellness initiative, through its Forsyth Counties Birth Stories project.
Q: How is this education crisis impacting your community and efforts to serve?
A: “Over the past few years, we’ve made financial investments of up to $3,000 per school in the Boston-Thurmond neighborhood. In addition, our residents and staff volunteer as tutors and we provide snacks at special events. This year, when we found out about the financial crisis that was facing the school system, we knew we needed to do more! We didn’t think that it would be appropriate to just show up with cupcakes or muffins, when there was so much dire need.
We started by meeting monthly with the principals of our neighborhood schools, along with some other community partners—to hear directly what they need. As a result, one of the local churches organized a supply drive for the schools and we are so grateful to them. I’m pleased that we also raised over $150,000, to go toward a free book program, in partnership with Durham’s Book Harvest. We made a three-year program commitment and now students at our local elementary schools will be able to each choose ten books annually to take home and read.”
Q: What steps are you taking to foster self-care and resilience?
A: “First, you have to acknowledge that stress is here. Particularly for Black women who run organizations, like me, and so many of the Black female leaders with whom we work. We’re essentially trained to operate like we have a battery in our back, and to keep going and going, and be resilient for any and everything. And that impacts the health of our bodies, particularly our pregnancies, and causes stress from over work.
So what do we do? We create a safe space for moms with support groups–in partnership with the Novant Health Clinic. Moms can stop in whether or not they’re pregnant. It’s difficult and it’s heavy work. But you find ways in which you can lend your expertise, lend your staff, lend your building, and try to help where you can. At the same time, you also have to ensure you are making time and space for your own and your staff’s self-care.”
Winston-Salem Street School
Mike Foster 
Executive Director
Winston Salem Street Schools
Winston-Salem Street School is a private alternative high school that serves at-risk youth who struggled in public schools due to academic or behavioral obstacles. Many of these youth were expelled or dropped out. This school is free to its students, offering a unique small school setting, small classes (with a 10:1 student teacher ratio), and an authentic curriculum. The goal is to create a safe, supported place for our students so they can graduate with a high school diploma, well prepared for further education or the workforce.
Q: How is this education crisis impacting your community and efforts to serve?
A: “We’ve seen a 25% increase in referrals over the past year, due to public school funding cuts. This was for over a hundred more students, but we didn’t have the space or funds to incorporate them into our regular curriculum. So we thankfully tapped additional funding to offer afternoon sessions a few days a week and an online program for students who cannot immediately join the day program. Fortunately, we had successfully implemented a strategic plan that allowed us to develop a satellite campus, allowing our current high school and adult programs to grow.”
Q: How is the community helping you to meet this challenging moment?
A: “We are blessed to have a good number of volunteers who stepped up to help, and we offer folks a chance to sign up on our website. Some people give one hour a week, others way more. We had volunteers who came to help with lunch and wound up becoming tutors. The majority are seasoned folks, with time to give, but some younger ones have joined too! The number of people working with us has doubled since last year.”
We asked everyone: What gives you hope in times like these?
Regina Hall
“What gives me hope is knowing that the community has come together in an unprecedented way, even with this ongoing crisis. Many of these are groups previously used to working in silos, now starting to work together. I love how the community is saying, ‘this is our role, this is our job to look out for each other, we’re going to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers.’ This gives me hope.”
Hayley Lampkin Blyth
“What gives me hope is that there is real momentum for solutions in our community right now. I think that we found ourselves in a crisis. But that has also given us an opportunity to come together around solutions and to work towards that end. I am hopeful that we can continue coming together, to do what needs to be done for students in Forsyth County, and all across our state. And I think that leads us all the way back to the beginning. Which is that what we need is fully-funded public schools.”
Mike Foster
“There’s a rainbow out there that gives me hope. It’s present when people come to our graduation, held at Home Moravian, a local church in Winston-Salem. Our graduation is raucous, rowdy, and loud. Our families come out of the woodwork to celebrate. They are so proud. Sometimes this is the first one in the family to get a high school diploma, or they’re the first one that’s now going on to college or a degree program. The happiness we see is a reminder of why we do this.”
The Trust is working for the long-term success of our schools.
The Trust will continue advocating for solutions to ensure the full funding of our public education system in Winston-Salem and for the system to invest equitably in every child, regardless of the color of their skin or where they live.