Checking Josh Stein’s claim about Mark Robinson skipping a ‘vote on teacher bonuses’

Democratic North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein’s campaign accused his Republican gubernatorial opponent Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of not caring about teacher pay.

A Stein campaign press release issued at 9:19 a.m. on Thursday accused Robinson of putting his campaign ahead of teachers.

“Mark Robinson skips Board of Education vote on teacher bonuses to hold campaign event,” the headline of the press release said. The body of the release also accused Robinson of missing the meeting.

Robinson’s attendance at meetings for boards and commissions on which he sits has come under scrutiny on the campaign trail. 

The Atlantic reported Aug. 30 that Robinson hadn’t attended any meetings of the North Carolina Military Affairs Commission since entering office in 2021. 

And early this year, Republican State Treasurer Dale Folwell called out Robinson’s scant attendance at State Board of Community Colleges meetings. When Robinson showed up to a meeting of the board in January, it was a first, according to Folwell, who also sits on the board. 

“Hell froze over!” Folwell, who was campaigning against Robinson for the GOP nomination at the time, said on social media. 

And Robinson has attended just over half of State Board of Education meetings, according to data collected by WRAL. 

So we wondered:

• Did Robinson skip Thursday’s Board of Education meeting?
• What did the board vote on?
• And did Robinson miss the vote?

We found Stein’s press release to be misleading — it omitted important details about Robinson’s participation and what the board voted on.

Attendance: Robinson was not physically present at the board’s 9 a.m. meeting in Raleigh Thursday. Robinson had a campaign event in Mooresville scheduled for the same time — but he called in to the meeting at 9:15 a.m., according to Jeanie McDowell, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Instruction. 

Trixie MacNeill, 21, a student at Davidson College, told Politifact NC that she was at the event. She shared videos of Robinson that she says she took at 9:18 a.m. Around that time, in Raleigh, the board was recognizing a group of teachers, organizing them for a series of photos. The board then took a break and reconvened around 9:52 a.m. 

Teacher bonuses: Some could interpret the Stein campaign’s press release headline to mean that the board voted on whether teachers would receive bonuses. That’s not the case. The board doesn’t have the authority to grant bonuses. The board reviewed a study of past teacher bonuses that was prepared by DPI staff. The 37-page report describes bonuses issued to teachers in prior school years. It details how teachers qualified for bonuses, how large the bonuses were, and which government entities issued the bonuses. 

“The data presented in this report are descriptive in nature,” McDowell, the DPI spokesperson, said in an email. “Any analyses conducted by NCDPI staff are correlational and do not indicate a causal relationship between the bonus monies and any measure of teacher effectiveness, retention, or other outcomes of interest.”

The vote: The study was part of the board’s consent agenda, which was brought up for a vote at the end of the meeting. The board posted a video of its meeting online. The teacher bonus study was listed as item “BSOP 6.” About two hours into the meeting, a board member motioned to approve “BSOP one through nine.” Robinson can then be heard, on the phone, voting “yea.” As a result of the board’s vote, the teacher bonus study will now be sent to the General Assembly, McDowell said.

Mike Lonergan, a spokesperson for Robinson’s campaign, said Stein’s press release is “a blatant lie and pure misinformation.”

Kate Frauenfelder, a spokesperson for the Stein campaign, said: “At the time the release was sent, the State Board of Education was meeting in Raleigh and Lieutenant Governor Robinson was two and a half hours away campaigning.”

Our ruling

The Stein campaign said Robinson “skips Board of Education vote on teacher bonuses to hold campaign event.”

Robinson wasn’t physically present at the meeting in Raleigh, but attended by calling in. The vote was related to a study on teacher bonuses — and whether to approve the study — and not whether to approve bonuses. When the board ordered a roll call vote, Robinson voted “yea” to approving the report.

The statement contains an element of truth in that Robinson was on the campaign trail, and not physically present at the State Board of Education meeting, but it ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. He voted on the item related to teacher bonuses. We rate this claim Mostly False.