On Friday, May 1, thousands of teachers, school staff, students, parents and community members marched across downtown Raleigh in a demonstration called the “Kids Over Corporations Rally,” organized by the North Carolina Association of Educators. They called on the North Carolina General Assembly to improve pay and working conditions for teachers, as well as providing schools with more resources.
After gathering at the Halifax Mall to listen to speeches from NCAE leaders, students, parents and teachers, the demonstrators took to the streets. They circled the area, passing many governmental office buildings. Along the route were “lessons” created by NCAE members meant to keep the event educational. Finally, the group looped back and passed the NC Legislative Building.
Dawn Jenkins is a history teacher at Moore County Schools. She attended the rally wearing the same bright “red for ed” hue as hundreds of fellow demonstrators. She said she hopes the rally forces people across North Carolina to focus on the situation in education.
“I’m really hopeful that people are gonna pay attention to the plight of teachers at the moment,” she said. “Not only are we getting paid certainly an inadequate salary, we’re also working really, really hard for our students and not being recognized for such. So we’re really wanting the powers that be to pay attention to teachers. Especially given the amount of vacancies that there are across North Carolina at the moment, it’s a real issue and we’re really concerned about the students’ future.”
State data shows there are 6,700 teacher vacancies in North Carolina. The state currently ranks 46th out of 50 for teacher pay, according to the National Education Association, with an average salary of $59,971. It also ranks last place in per-pupil spending.
Due to the state legislature’s delay in passing a budget, pay raises for teachers have been delayed as inflation increases. Combine that with premium hikes on state employees’ health insurance, and many educators are in a rough spot.
“You know, a lot of us took leave to be here today,” Jenkins said. “We don’t want to be out of the classroom. We want to be where we’re supposed to be educating our children, but we’re doing this because we’re really seeing problems with what’s going on in education in North Carolina.”
Demonstrators on the Halifax Mall listen to speakers while holding monarch butterfly puppets (Image via Ayven Hard/Chapel Hill Media Group).
Bryan Proffitt is the vice president of NCAE, who also served as the emcee for the speakers at the beginning of the rally. He said lower teacher pay in North Carolina is having tangible impacts which can be seen across the state.
“Everybody’s having second jobs,” he said. “Everybody’s having third jobs. Sitting in classrooms that are 90 degrees. Sitting in classrooms that are 35 kids instead of 25 kids, right? My step kid comes home and tells stories of, ‘oh yeah, we’ve had this sub for the last two weeks in a row.’ And so what happens when you have that kind of pulling at the seams is that everybody who is there has to step up and do more, right? Not only do you have to get a second job to be able to pay for your rent, but when you’re actually at work, you gotta do way more than you were doing in the first place.”
The name of the rally, “Kids Over Corporations,” implies the state is more concerned with its largest companies rather than its youngest residents.
“The overwhelming majority of people in the state need to say that we need to be spending more resources on kids, right?” he said. “No one is asking for there to be more resources going back into the pockets of wealthy people except for wealthy people. And so this legislature is ignoring the majority of people in this state, whether they be Black, white, brown, native, immigrant, mountains, coast, urban, rural, everyone. And that’s what you’re gonna see out here today.”
The NCAE vice president said he was proud of the educators who made the choice to step out and stand up for their profession.
“For teachers, this is part of our job,” he said. “Part of our job description is that we are supposed to advocate for our kids and our profession and our schools. So we’re not taking the day off. We’re here working today.”
Demonstrators arrived in Raleigh from every corner of the state, with many coming from Orange County. Jonah Garson, who has represented District 23 since being appointed to the state senate in April, posted on Instagram alongside fellow Orange County attendees, sharing his support for the rally.
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In a separate Instagram caption, he described the event as “thousands of public school students and parents and teachers and staff in solidarity and friendship and common cause for a budget that does right by the most important civic institutions in this state and does right by our people.”
NC House District 56 Representative Allen Buansi provided Chapelboro with a statement on Friday’s demonstrations.
“Today, we heard the call loud and clear from thousands of North Carolinians — fund our public schools, our teachers and most of all, our children,” he said. “We desperately need to address our ranking of 50th in the country in per pupil spending, ranking of 46th in teacher pay and the $13 billion in needed school repairs and construction.”
The action being supported by the NCAE goes further than just rallying. Christina Cole, the president of the Wake County NCAE and statewide NCAE president-elect, explained the organization’s next steps, as well as how impactful Friday’s rally was.
“We’ve closed over 20 schools, [which employs] a majority of public school staff here in the state of North Carolina,” Cole said. “And we’re excited to launch our ‘Kids Over Corporations’ campaign, which calls for increasing the [corporate] tax rate to 5%. And we have legislation moving in the Senate, so we’re excited to see where that goes in this session too.”
Senate Bill 943, which was filed on Wednesday, April 29, calls for exactly what Cole said. As of April 30, the bill has been referred to the Committee on Rules and Operations of the Senate. Its primary sponsors are NC-22 State Senator Sophia Chitlik, NC-20 State Senator Natalie S. Murdock and NC-05 State Senator Kandie D. Smith, each of whom are Democrats.
Cole also said the rally is important due to the recent decision in the Leandro case. Leandro v. State of NC was a decades-long state Supreme Court case centered on the disparity in education opportunities for students in poor and wealthy areas. The case was thrown out by the state supreme court weeks ago. Despite the ruling, proponents claim the disparity between education in these areas is in violation of the state’s constitution.
“Our state constitution says we should fully fund public schools and that is the responsibility of this decision making body,” Cole said, referring to the state legislature. “So that is another implication for why we’re here and why it’s important for us to demand fully funding our schools. It’s kind of a slap in the face, us not living up to the legacy that was set in that original constitution in 1868.”
Christina Cole, the president of the Wake County NCAE and statewide NCAE president-elect, speaks to the crowd (Image via Ayven Hard/Chapel Hill Media Group).
The rally was also attended by politicians and political hopefuls, such as Richard Ojeda, the Democratic nominee for NC-09’s congressional seat in the House of Representatives. He did not mince words on his feelings regarding North Carolina’s delayed budget.
“That’s pure buffoonery,” he said. “I mean, we’re the only state in the nation that hasn’t produced a budget. That’s the one thing that [the legislature] is required to do. And they have failed miserably. So maybe it’s time to exchange them and put somebody in there that will pass a budget and will take care of teachers and school service personnel.”
Joe Parfitt is another Democratic candidate who was in attendance Friday. He’s running for N.C. House District 52’s seat against Republican incumbent Ben Moss. He’s also a substitute teacher, which he said influenced his decision to run for office.
“I’ll go into a classroom and I’ll be like, ‘what was the teacher working on yesterday?’ It’s like, oh, it was a sub yesterday,” he said. “And the sub the day before that and the sub all last week. The students are not getting the education they deserve.”
He said he feels like Friday’s turnout should put pressure on North Carolina’s lawmakers.
“Obviously not everyone can get here from the far west and far east, but just the show of solidarity is gonna have other teachers thinking ‘we should do more as well to stand together,’” Parfitt said. “Because if we all stand together, Raleigh will have to back down.”
A child rides the shoulders of a demonstrator (Image via Ayven Hard/Chapel Hill Media Group).
And as Dawn Jenkins puts it, teachers are more important to the functioning of our society now more than ever.
“As educators, we don’t give our own political opinions,” she said. “We provide the information to our children through our lesson plans and allow them to make the decisions themselves. There’s a lot of concern with the politics of the day. There’s a lot of concern with where we’re going as a country, what our impact is on the world as a whole. Our kids need to be able to understand where we are. They need to understand the situation, and that’s what we as educators are able to do. That’s why educators are important, because we’re giving the kids what they need to be able to be successful as adults.”
Featured image via Ayven Hard/Chapel Hill Media Group
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