CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It is one of the most highly watched political races this year, between former Guilford County Superintendent Mo Green, and home school teacher and nurse Michele Morrow.

While Green has campaigned heavily on the need to continue to invest more money into the North Carolina public school system, Morrow has run on a more fiscally conservative approach.

Read more about Democratic candidate Mo Green here

She’s calling for a statewide audit into spending, to ensure tax dollars are best being spent on students. 

“The people that are with our children every single day driving our buses, people that are feeding our kids their meals, the kids that the people that are boots on the ground helping our students to learn,” Morrow said during a recent Spectrum News 1 debate.

“We have had only a 70% increase in the funding to our teachers. While we have had a 265% increase in the monies that are going to administrative and bureaucratic stuff, that’s where we need to take the money from,” she said.

It’s an issue school districts across the state have been discussing. And in Dare County, the publics has been passionate in recent months, as an additional spending project in their local school district was heavily debated.

Every parent wants their kids to have the best education possible and to succeed in academics, but each child is different. And sometimes, learning can look a little different too.

That is why for the past year, Dare County Schools has been looking into building their own early college in the area.

During a Board of Education meeting in July, Dare County Superintendent Steve Basnight made his case why adding an early college is so imperative.

“It’s not just about going to college, it’s about providing uh the basis for an occupation,” Basnight said.

There’s currently 17 school districts across the state without an early college, with Dare being one of them. Some say adding a new school is a waste of money.

“I’m not against advanced learning,” mom Rebecca Spencer said. “I am against spending funds on new shiny things when we have old things that need to be taken care of.”

This is an example of spending, that while some feel is important, others say as education is fighting for public dollars, there needs to be clear priorities where money is given.

It’s a clear line drawn between the two state superintendent candidates.

Spencer said she isn’t entirely opposed to the idea of an early college. But she said the lack of communication between the department of public instruction, Dare county schools, and parents before this decision was made wasn’t enough.

“The decisions affect all counties, and a lot of it is our tax money,” Spencer said. “While there’s great things to be put in place, we’re not notified about it until after it’s voted on. And a lot of the voting is not in public agendas. It’s in their private sessions behind closed doors.”

She said this all starts in the capital city, where funding decisions are made for the entire state. That’s where she wants to see the next superintendent of public instruction be more transparent about proposals. 

“I feel like a system in place and approved by Raleigh that trickles down and is watched, and we have actual physical bodies in our school systems to make sure funds are being spent it correctly and on the right things at the right time would help implement better, happier staff, teachers, students and your education is going to soar,” Spencer said.

The Department of Public Instruction, the State Board of Education, the UNC System and the N.C. Community College Board of Directors have all approved Dare County Schools’ application to open an Early College.

The District is now taking the next steps with their local government and the community to plan the school. They have yet to set an opening date.