Teachers seeking more resources fill North Carolina streets
Teachers demanding better pay and more resources filled the streets of North Carolina’s capital city Wednesday with loud chants and the colour red, continuing the trend of educators around the country rising up to pressure lawmakers for change.
Thousands of teachers from around the state marched through downtown to the Legislative Building, where the Republican-controlled legislature was starting its annual work session. Organizers’ prior estimate of 15,000 participants appeared easily met as city blocks turned the colour of the red shirts worn by most marchers. Chants included “We care! We vote!” and “This is What Democracy Looks Like!”
“The main reason I’m here is, I’ve seen the pattern over the years where I feel the current politicians in charge of the state are anti-public education,” said Raleigh high school teacher Bill Notarnicola as he prepared a time-lapse photo along the pa- Participants make their way toward the Legislative Building during a teachers rally at the General Assembly in Raleigh, N.C., yesterday.
rade route. “As we’re growing, the funds are not keeping up with the growth. We are seeing cutback, after cutback, after cutback.”
Previous strikes, walkouts and protests in West Virginia, Arizona, Kentucky, Colorado and Oklahoma have led legislators in each state to improve pay, benefits or overall school funding.
Wednesday’s rally in North Carolina prompted three-dozen school districts that educate more than two- thirds of the state’s 1.5 million public school students to cancel class.
Rachel Holdridge, a special education teacher at Wilmington’s Alderman Elementary School, said she drives for Uber to make ends meet despite working in education for 22 years. She said lawmakers and state government have let teachers down by failing to equip them properly to do their job.
“They keep giving tiny raises and taking so much away from the kids,” said Holdridge.
The state’s main teacher advocacy group, the North Carolina Association of Educators, demands that legislators increase per-pupil spending to the national average in four years, increase school construction for a growing state, and approve a multiyear pay raise for teachers and school support staff that would raise incomes to the national average.