Rachel Keith

1 week ago | whqr.org | Rachel Keith

Sarah Ridout is the HOP Director with Community Care of the Lower Cape Fear. She said that providing these services, on average, saves Medicaid $85 a month per member because, as the UNC report showed, members are less likely to visit the emergency department. In 2024, for Cape Fear HOP, that meant a yearly savings of up to $1.4 million.

1 week ago | whqr.org | Rachel Keith

The idea is that if people’s basic needs are met, overall medical costs will be lowered—and from the preliminary data collected, it looks like it’s working. The state and federal governments fund HOP, which operates in 33 counties across North Carolina. The coverage area is divided into three regions, and the Lower Cape Fear is one of them. It includes Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover, Onslow, and Pender counties.

1 week ago | whqr.org | Rachel Keith

The Republican board members saw the censure as an appropriate response to Merrick not following proper protocols in his conversations with an educator and not following directives from the chair after he lost committee assignment for two months because of this interaction. Merrick saw this as him supporting an educator who wanted to quit over their treatment of having a Pride flag in their classroom, which goes against current board policy. More on this backstory is here.

2 weeks ago | whqr.org | Rachel Keith |Ben Schachtman

According to interviews and documents reviewed by WHQR, an employee contacted Merrick with concerns about the district’s new restriction on flags—namely the Pride flag—in schools. The teacher didn’t want to remove her flag and didn’t know what to do.After Merrick responded, board chair Melissa Mason disciplined him and removed him from his committees for two months.

2 weeks ago | whqr.org | Rachel Keith

The rates come from a recently released report by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, which outlines the state of the teaching profession based on data from the 2023-2024 school year. For the 2022-2023 school year, New Hanover's rate was 12%, but historically, it’s hovered around 9%. This also applies to other school districts in the region and the state average.