Gov. Beverly Perdue stopped through Wilmington Thursday afternoon to advocate her push to bump up the state’s sales tax to fund public education.

Perdue, a Democrat who recently announced last month she would not seek reelection, told a crowd of New Hanover County principals and administrators she is taking up the charge once the General Assembly reconvenes next week.

The governor’s plan would “temporarily” re-instate a ¾ of a cent sales tax that could potentially raise about $750 million for education over a one-year period.

Her announcement was received with wide smiles and nods of approval, especially after a number of North Carolina public schools, including in New Hanover, endured deep cuts to education funding during the past legislative session.

Perdue praised the staff present, many of whom were receiving training as part of New Hanover County Public School’s Dropout Prevention Taskforce, for their work in the midst of decreased funding.

“I want ya’ll to know how grateful we are for what you’re doing,” Perdue said. “What you’re doing in New Hanover County, the fact that you’ve formed this taskforce to address the drop rate is very important.”

Perdue said the state needs additional resources to properly fund public education and keep at-risk students in the classroom.

“We cannot afford to throw away a quarter of our population,” Perdue said, hinting at the number of high school dropouts living in the state. “Ya’ll in New Hanover County have decided that’s not going to happen here.”

New Hanover County public school officials recently introduced two initiatives to help curb dropout rates in the county.

The first being a transition document, a living spreadsheet where principals can indicate if a student is at-risk of dropping out. The spreadsheet also has categories for things like discipline problems, whether a student had to repeat a grade and if the student has poor attendance. The second initiative lets high schools allow certain at-risk students to graduate with 21 credits — the minimum required by the state — instead of the New Hanover County-mandated 28 credits.

Since implementing the program, New Hanover County Schools have welcomed more than100 students classified as dropouts back into the classroom this school year, and decreased its dropout rate by 20 percent during the 2010-11 school year, according to district records.

Purdue asked the educators, all of whom were in the presence of Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo, New Hanover County Schools Superintendent Tim Markley, Commissioner Jonathan Barfield and school board members — for ideas to prevent dropouts.

But, many present did not pony up any solutions to help the governor.

However, Hoggard High School Principal Pamela Baldwin told the governor the state needs to increase public school funds to prevent even more students from dropping out.

“I would rather have five teachers and computers in the classroom,” Baldwin said of the state’s budget cuts.

Later, Perdue visited with former Cape Fear Community College students, staff and CFCC president Eric McKeithan at New Hanover Regional Medical Center. 

The former students graduated from CFCC’s Surgical Tech training program and received jobs with the medical center upon completion of the program.

In a former operating room converted into classroom, the students gave Perdue a first-hand look at how the college’s partnership with the hospital is spurring an educated workforce and jobs.

But, Barfield hinted that with limited resources from the state, forming and retaining partnerships between county agencies is becoming stressed.

“We have got to have the funds to support our community college, school system, and without the proper revenue this cannot be possible,” Barfield said.