We reported about a month ago that teachers in North Carolina—the top 25 percent in any given district—could be asked to sign away their due process rights under a tenure-like designation known as “career status” in exchange for a $500 raise in each year of a four-year contract, pending availability of funding.
Map: N.C. Office of State Archaeology
Several superintendents have refused to take the contracts to their teachers, considering it demoralizing and counterproductive when piled on top of other recent laws that seem to carry an anti-teacher objective.
And on March 4, the school board in Wake County, the nation’s 16th largest school district with about 150,000 students, took a giant step to oppose the new law. The board approved a resolution that asks the state legislature to repeal the law that created the “25% contracts.”
Before the meeting, Christine Kushner, chair of the board, wrote a letter to the district’s teachers:
Tonight, the Board of Education will formally consider a resolution respectfully requesting the N.C. General Assembly repeal new legislation that asks selected teachers to relinquish their career status in exchange for new four-year contracts.
We have heard concerns from many of you about this new legislation. We share many of those concerns. We realize that the General Assembly has funded only the first year of this four-year program. We share concerns that there is a pending lawsuit against this legislation and you may be asked to waive your career status before the courts have reached a resolution. Furthermore, we take exception to the requirement that the district must select only 25 percent of teachers for raises when all of you deserve one.
We want better outcomes for you, for our students, and for our community. We believe that bringing teachers together—not forcing divisive competition—is the way to improve our schools.
At tonight’s board meeting, we will consider a resolution that respectfully requests the General Assembly to repeal this legislation, and in its place, develop a compensation plan that is tied to career growth and pulls North Carolina teacher salaries up to the national average. We are considering this action because many of you have asked us to—and because it’s the right thing to do.
On behalf of the entire Board of Education, I invite you watch the board meeting live online starting at 5:30 p.m. We also invite you to share your thoughts with us on Twitter using the hashtag #NCTeachers, via email, or at a future board meeting.
For everything you do, thank you.
Add Durham to the list.
Members of the Durham school board voted unanimously yesterday to join a lawsuit against this law, WRAL-TV (CBS affiliate) reports.
Members of the Durham board are defending their teachers against the legislature’s nonstop assault on career educators, which is causing an exodus of experienced teachers from the state.
“If the governor and the North Carolina General Assembly won’t stand up for our children’s teachers, then we will,” said Heidi Carter, Durham school board chairwoman. “This 25 percent mandate is not about rewarding excellence in teaching. It’s about coercing teachers to give up a right they’ve justly earned. And that’s a right to salary protection and a right to due process.”