Hundreds of NC teachers are calling out and protesting. Here’s what they want.

CARY

Hundreds of North Carolina teachers called out of work on Wednesday to participate in protests urging state leaders to provide more money for public education.

Leaders of NC Teachers in Action say 650 to 750 educators at 52 schools, including 30 in Wake County, 15 in New Hanover County, five in Charlotte-Mecklenburg and two in Gaston County, demonstrated at intersections from Wilmington to just outside of Gastonia.

Teachers held signs and chanted that the state isn’t doing enough to support public schools, citing data such as how the state has low national rankings on teacher pay and school funding.

“We want everybody to understand that this is a true problem that we are in right now, and something’s got to change,” Jennilee Lloyd, a Wake County teacher and a leader in NC Teachers in Action, said in a December interview.

Some of the protests were walk-ins, meaning teachers held them before classes started or plan to after classes end to not disrupt the school day.

But NC Teachers in Action said most of the protests are walkouts with teachers and instructional assistants using a personal day or sick day. The absence of so many educators caused some schools to bring in substitute teachers and make other changes to the schedule.

Group wants higher teacher pay

NC Teachers in Action was formed after an anonymous social media post went viral and caused some teachers to call out of work in November.

NC Teachers in Action lists several actions it wants the state to take as reasons for a walkout, including:

• Restore longevity pay, a benefit the state used to provide to reward teachers for their years of service.
• Unfreeze step increases. Teachers with 16 to 24 years of experience no longer get an automatic annual pay raise under the state’s salary schedule.
• Restore master’s pay, a benefit the state used to pay that boosted teacher salaries by 10% a year.
• Restore retiree health coverage. State employees and teachers hired after Jan. 1, 2021, don’t get health benefits from the state when they retire
• Fully fund the Leandro plan, a multibillion-dollar plan to increase school funding to try to provide every student with highly qualified teachers and principals.
• Cap health insurance premiums at a time when State Health Plan costs are rising.

North Carolina ranks 43rd in the nation in average teacher pay, according to the National Education Association. The Education Law Center recently ranked North Carolina at the bottom nationally in state funding for schools.

“I don’t know if anything will come of this, honestly,” said Caitlyn Dowell, a Wake County teacher and a leader of NC Teachers in Action. “It’s hard to say that legislators will listen to us.”

Teachers making ‘ransom demands’

Many of the benefits teachers want restored were eliminated as part of education changes made since Republicans gained the majority in the state legislature after the 2010 election. Republicans have made expanding school choice a priority, including easing rules on charter school expansion and opening up the state’s private school voucher program to all families.

GOP legislative leaders are fighting the Leandro plan, arguing that only the legislature and not the courts can order the spending of state money.

“I love how you look at the ransom demands for these teachers and it’s like ‘unconstitutionally spend billions of dollars and stop rewarding merit-based raises’ lmao,” Matt Mercer, a spokesperson for the North Carolina Republican Party, said in a post Tuesday on X.

Wednesday won’t be the last protest organized by NC Teachers In Action, The next two scheduled protests, on Feb. 7 and March 7, are on Saturdays.

An April 7 protest is planned for when the General Assembly is expected to be in Raleigh. April 7 is a school day.

“We will continue to fight for what we feel is the right thing to do,” said Brandy Sanders, a Wake County teacher and a leader of NC Teachers in Action.