"I would like to share my experience of not having a teacher"

notes from county commissioner meetings in Chatham County, NC

Quick multiple choice question: what’s the number one predictor of student success?

A. State-of-the-art facilities

B. A progressive, hands-on curriculum

C. Access to extracurriculars like theatre, art, music, and sports

D. Highly qualified teachers in every classroom

I’m guessing you Frog Troublers know the answer is D. I mean, it all sounds great—essential, even. But if you don’t have highly qualified teachers, you can’t make use of any of the rest of it. Well-trained teachers impact attendance, graduation rates, and the lifetime earnings of their students–some studies have shown a return of $11 for every dollar invested.

Where we live, in Chatham County, North Carolina, some of us have been on a mission to improve teacher pay so that we can attract and retain the best teachers for every kid in our district. Thanks to our Republican-controlled legislature, North Carolina ranks around 41st in teacher pay, with starting salaries of $39,000, even though we are a top-ten state for GDP. The percentage of state money spent on education overall has declined significantly, from 52% in 1970 to about 41% in 2021-2022.

That leaves local districts, like ours, to figure out how to pay for everything the state and federal governments neglect—including, and especially, teacher pay. Every district in North Caroline offers some sort of teacher supplement, ranging from a few hundred dollars a year to several thousand, and ours is not the worst. Most recently we ranked 12th in the state and 5th in our high-cost-of-living region of the state. But this ranking means we lose teachers all the time—to better-paying districts like Wake and Chapel Hill, as well as to other jobs. We lose more than 13% of our teachers a year through turnover, and our schools struggle to attract the best new teachers.

The goal of a group of teachers, parents, and community members that started out small—just a few of us meeting every two weeks on Zoom—was to ask our community to dig deeper, and pay more out of the county’s budget, so that all kids in Chatham can thrive. (And also so that our teachers can afford to live here! Without working second and third jobs!)

Should respectable teacher salaries be funded by our state legislature, which is constitutionally required to provide a “sound basic education” for every kid? Absolutely. But thanks to our state’s racist gerrymandering (not to mention Republicans’ insistence on increasing voucher funding), that’s not happening this year, probably not any time soon. And in the meantime, kids are suffering.

“I would like to share my experience of not having a teacher,” a high school sophomore told members of the Chatham County Commissioners at the May 21 meeting in Siler City, one of two towns in our county to host hearings on next year’s budget. This student was one of a half-dozen young people to speak, alongside parents and community members, standing near the end of the school year before a large crowd of school supporters, and in front of our five elected commissioners seated behind a long table. Would these students have preferred to rest, study, play sports, hang out with friends, or do most anything else on a Tuesday night after school? Probably! But instead they were there to tell us about the challenges they’ve faced in this starved-funding system, which has meant, for some of them, taking difficult, important math classes virtually. These students, and their parents, told us about:

-Watching their GPAs decline because they can’t succeed in online-only classes.

-Struggling to contact and get help from overburdened online teachers

-Needing to take afterschool “recovery” classes to try to understand the material.

-Kids tutoring and teaching other kids who have no certified teacher in the classroom.

-Kids with special needs, like a visually impaired teacher for one student, receiving only remote instruction.

-Having no way to get home from school because there isn’t a bus driver available.

-Wanting desperately to attend the same public schools as their parents and siblings, but not knowing if they can succeed there.

It was a powerful experience, watching these students speak up for their schools and teachers. No one in that room wanted to abandon our public school system. Many in attendance were from immigrant families who’d come to the United States for better opportunities, and several of the parents spoke to the commissioners through a teacher who translated their words as they spoke.

“School is our children’s second home,” one mom said. She shared that she tells her children to “study, because education is the only inheritance I can give you.”

I’m very pleased to tell you that this outpouring of support for teachers and students—more than 150 attendees at three weeknight commissioner meetings, more than 30 people sharing in-person public comment—is seeing results.

Back in January, we were looking at around a $400 proposed increase for teacher supplements. Starting with the school board (meeting after meeting!), and moving on to the county commissioners (meeting after meeting!), we as a community have pushed for raises for both teachers and school staff. Things won’t be finalized until June 17, but after all of that good work the current Chatham County budget draft includes a teacher supplement increase of $2000 and a classified staff supplement increase of $500.

This push for increased funding is happening in counties all over NC, especially where Public School Strong has chapters. Small groups of people are demanding things like universal free lunch, better bus driver and teaching assistant pay, and supplements that fill in the gaps shamefully left by our Republican-led legislature.

I’m proud of the work we’ve done, proud of the good working relationship we’ve maintained with our school board and commissioners. And I have no right to be, but I’m especially proud of those high school and middle school students, who I believe will go on to do amazing things for their families and our whole community. They already have, just by putting aside a busy Tuesday night and standing up to speak the truth about their schools.

The fight, of course, is also at happening the state level, and includes an incredibly important race for superintendent of public instruction. I wrote about our two (vastly different!) choices here, in Cardinal and Pine, an NC-based news site with no paywalls. The Frog Trouble Times is proud to endorse Mo Green, an experienced, innovative, and empathetic education leader who actually believes in public schools. I recently had a chance to meet Mo, and he is kind, down-to-earth, smart, and vastly experienced at school system leadership. I told Bea about Mo vs. his opponent, Michele Morrow, and how the difference could be summed up like this: Mo wrote a letter of gratitude to every one of his children’s public schools after they graduated (they were in public schools K-12). Michele is a homeschooler who took her oldest kids on a field trip to the January 6 insurrection.

“Wow,” Bea said. “I’m all in for Mo. What can we do to help?”

More on that front soon!

In the meantime, CCAE and Public School Strong members will be at next Sunday’s Pittsboro First Sunday to celebrate the positive and supportive relationship between Chatham County Public Schools, the Chatham County Commissioners, and the community! If you’re in town, please come on by (June 2 from 12-4 in downtown Pittsboro) to say hi, make cards for your favorite teachers, and enter Chatham County staff in raffles for gift cards to local businesses

Also, here’s a recent photo of Harriet in the garden:

Also, here’s a gift link to an excellent, hopeful interview with climate scientist (and marine biologist) Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. Thanks to Cat for the recommendation!

What will you be doing this week, Frog Troublers? Smelling tomato plants? Celebrating big wins?

Lots of love from us, as always.