Tuckaseegee Elementary’s Principal LaTresha Wilson is surprised with the announcement that she is the regional 2026 Principal of the Year on Tuesday, December 16, 2025.
Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez
mrodriguez@charlotteobserver.com
LaTresha Wilson, principal of Tuckaseegee Elementary School in west Charlotte, has been named a finalist for the 2026 North Carolina Principal of the Year.
Students, district leaders and the 2025 winner, Jason Johnson, surprised Wilson with the honor Tuesday morning, the second such surprise she’s received in three months. Wilson was previously named Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Principal of the Year on Oct. 3.
“I know that I live and I breathe being a principal and pouring into these kids every day, so it means so much to me,” Wilson told The Charlotte Observer after she was named the CMS principal of the year. “The heart and the dedication that I put into it, I know that it’s unmatched.”
Jason Johnson, Wells Fargo’s 2025 Principal of the Year, informs Tuckaseegee Elementary’s Principal LaTresha Wilson that she is the regional 2026 Principal of the Year on Tuesday, December 16, 2025. Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez mrodriguez@charlotteobserver.com
She is now one of nine principals, out of the state’s more than 2,500, in the running for The Wells Fargo North Carolina Principal of the Year award to be announced in May. The award was introduced in 1984.
The statewide 2026 winner will serve as an advisor to the State Board of Education for a two-year term and serves on the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Public School Forum.
Wilson is in her third year as a first-time principal, after previously serving as assistant principal at Paw Creek Elementary School. Over the last two years, Tuckaseegee’s school performance grade from the state has improved from a D to a B under Wilson’s leadership.
Wilson in large part credits her staff and her students for the school’s progress. Tuckaseegee is one of the district’s Title I schools, meaning it has a high proportion of low-income students, and Wilson said students are “shattering stereotypes.”
Rebecca Noel reports on education for The Charlotte Observer. She’s a native of Houston, Texas, and graduated from Rice University. She later received a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. When she’s not reporting, she enjoys reading, running and frequenting coffee shops around Charlotte.
AFT President Randi Weingarten addresses the The American Federation of Professional Educators of North Carolina board in Charlotte on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025.
Rebecca Noel
rnoel@charlotteobserver.com
A North Carolina teachers union on Tuesday voted to join the national American Federation of Teachers in a bid to “be heard” by state lawmakers.
The board of Professional Educators of North Carolina, an organization with 1,700 members across the state, voted unanimously in Charlotte to affiliate with the AFT, which has 1.8 million members and 3,870 active affiliates nationwide. As part of the move, PENC will now be rebranded as AFPENC: The American Federation of Professional Educators of North Carolina.
The national union will begin advocating in Raleigh for the approval of a new state budget and higher salaries for teachers, AFT President Randi Weingarten said Tuesday.
The North Carolina General Assembly still has not approved a budget for the 2025 fiscal year, which began July 1. Without it, the state operates off its previous budget, meaning teachers and other state employees will go without raises for the time being. Meanwhile, the state health plan also changed this year, with premiums and deductibles increasing for public employees.
“What I heard from North Carolina educators is ‘How do we actually make the state lawmakers more responsive to what the citizens of the state need, which is a good public education system, good public schools that respect their educators?’” Weingarten said. “Respecting educators means that you’re not going to have premium payments that are out of reach, that you’re going to have pay that your family can live on.”
North Carolina currently ranks 43rd in the nation for average teacher pay, according to the National Education Association. It trails all other states in the southeast except Mississippi.
“We want to bring hope to teachers and let them know that we now have a national union supporting us,” said AFPENC president Joanna Loftis. “We need to be heard, and this is a way for us to be heard.”
What does it mean?
Teachers’ unions in North Carolina have less power than in some other parts of the country: state law prohibits state and local governments from entering into collective bargaining agreements with public employees. Basically, teachers have the right to organize and advocate for their interests, but unions cannot legally bargain with the government.
State law also bans public sector employees from striking.
Still, AFPENC is not totally defanged. AFT can use its resources to advocate on behalf of North Carolina educators in Raleigh, and it offers a number of benefits to members. Those include free mental health support, free books for teachers and students at low-income schools, help with student debt forgiveness and covering the cost of continuing education required by the state.
School districts in North Carolina are not legally required to recognize unions, but Weingarten said, with a national union behind them, AFPENC can make waves.
“When you start going down the road of having real presence, then that’s when you have real possibility, and that’s when recognition happens. Too often in a state like North Carolina, school districts don’t have a legal obligation (to recognize unions),” Weingarten said. “Right now, we’re going to take baby steps and try to create a way that people are respected for the amazing, invaluable, righteous, sacrosanct work that they do.”
This story was originally published October 14, 2025 at 2:51 PM.
Rebecca Noel reports on education for The Charlotte Observer. She’s a native of Houston, Texas, and graduated from Rice University. She later received a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. When she’s not reporting, she enjoys reading, running and frequenting coffee shops around Charlotte.
