Punxsutawney Phil has predicted an early spring!* According to NOAA, Phil is about 36% accurate in his predictions, which is not a great record in a yes/no scenario. But my feeling this time of year is: six more weeks of winter? Totally doable. Especially with the longer days and hopeful, bright signs all around us: daffodils and crocuses popping up in our yard, carrots and scallions in our farm share, chorus frogs singing in the creeks. Yesterday Harriet and Bea and I went out and about for boba tea and saw girls in pretty spring dresses, even sandals! (It was not quite that warm but we appreciated the optimism.)
Ellen shared that in the Berkshires, the old-timers’ wisdom holds that “the peepers have to freeze down three times before winter is over.” That sounds right, though here in NC with our earlier springs, the frogs we hear first are upland chorus frogs (peepers are later here, and have a more high-pitched, chirping sound). Chorus frogs start calling in the Piedmont in late January, and have a song that some people compare to running your fingers over the teeth of a comb:
“Freezing down” doesn’t hurt the frogs, which hibernate in leaf litter (another reason to leave your leaves!). Frogs store glycerol in their bodily fluids, which their livers convert into glucose when it’s really cold. This is circulated throughout their bodies as they freeze, preventing ice crystals from forming and damaging their organ tissues.
I think I prefer this freezing-down, back-and-forth way of seeing spring’s arrival to Phil’s iffy pronouncements. It seems more accurate to how we live: putting on the sandals, then feeling the chilly air on our toes. Some frosty mornings, then another beautiful, T-shirt weather day.
Another back and forth sign of spring? Chatham County is working on its budget for next year, which includes the budget for the school system. The school budget process is complex, months-long, and requires collaboration and compromise between the Board of Education and the County Commissioners. Luckily, we live in a county that has a strong working relationship between these two groups—and also many of the best educators, bus drivers, and schools staff in the state!
Unfortunately, the state of North Carolina does not support our public school teachers and kids the way we used to. Twenty years ago, we offered among the best salaries in the South, close to the national average. Teachers and staff had free 90/10 copay health insurance, free dental insurance, incentives for advanced degrees, plus longevity pay and the protection of tenure for experienced teachers. We also had teaching assistants in most elementary school classes.
Now, with a supermajority Republican legislature, NC offers some of the lowest salaries in the country. We’re 48th in per-pupil expenditure. Teachers must pay for worse health insurance (70/30 copays), pay for dental insurance (if they can afford it—it’s pricey), and receive no tenure protection, incentives for advanced degrees, or longevity pay. The state has 7,000 fewer teaching assistants, a disparity that hits our disabled kids the hardest.
This is despite the fact that business is booming in North Carolina. We’re one of the fastest-growing states in the country, increasing our GDP more than 22% since 2018.
Like our surrounding counties, Chatham County has fought back against this unfair system by offering supplements to teacher pay, along with lower supplements for classified staff like bus drivers and cafeteria workers. But our supplements lag behind the supplements in Chapel Hill, Durham County, and Wake County. Unlike many other counties, we also require most classified staff, like teaching assistants, to be employed in a dual role. That means that a teaching assistant, like Harriet’s wonderful co-teacher, has to drive the bus, clock out, work a whole day in the classroom, and clock back in to drive kids home at the end of the day. All while making comparatively less, and with worse benefits, than teachers in 2002 (when NC was poorer).
So we have a small but crucial ask for our Chatham County readers—and we know there are a lot of you! Help support the Chatham County Association of Educators by signing and sharing this petition to improve pay and working conditions for teachers, bus drivers, custodians, instructional assistants, cafeteria workers and maintenance staff. All of these workers are essential to our county, whether you have kids or not!
The petition, created by teachers and staff members of the CCAE, has two primary goals:
1. Meaningful Raises for All Staff:
A. A $2000 increase in the local supplement for all certified teachers with 0-14 years of experience and a $3000 increase for those with 15+ years of experience. It is imperative we support and retain our incredible educators and attract top talent in our competitive region.
B. A $17/hour minimum wage for all classified staff with continued efforts to stretch the pay scale for veteran staff. Our bus drivers, custodians, instructional assistants, cafeteria workers and maintenance staff are crucial to the safe, healthy operation of our schools. We must address our long-standing classified staffing shortages by paying them a living wage (most do not make the $18.40/hour Chatham living wage), which will prevent current staff from leaving out of necessity and attract new classified staff.
2. Phase Out Mandatory Dual Role Positions over the next two school years. Requiring new classified staff to drive the bus in addition to their work as an instructional assistant, custodian, or cafeteria worker is preventing our schools from filling many of those positions. Many potential recruits are not able or not willing to work the extended hours required to fulfill the dual role. Increasing bus driver wages would allow Chatham to phase out this requirement for new hires in the first year and make it optional for veteran staff in the following year, all while filling other critical classified positions as well.
By signing this petition you are letting local leaders know that you stand with Chatham educators, parents, community members and business owners and are supporting a school budget that our students and staff deserve.
Chatham is one of the richest counties in the state—number three (five by some metrics) for income and property value!—but we rank 58th in NC in terms of our local funding effort. Our community can afford it. Maybe it’s better to say that we have to afford it. It is an ethical and a practical imperative that we pay our teachers and school staff well enough for them to live good lives as our neighbors, and continue to choose teaching as a career.
So if you live in Chatham County, please sign and share! So far we have 487 online signatures, plus a bunch more paper signatures, but our goal (by March 7) is to collect 2,000 signatures from community members. I think we can get there, especially if we all talk to neighbors, friends, and post to social media. When Richard and Julie and I canvassed the car line this Wednesday, nearly everyone we spoke to was eager to add their names.
Chatham residents, please click here for the sharable petition.
How about you, Frog Troublers? Do you predict an early spring? Are you hearing frogs yet? How well are teachers supported where you live?
*Tater and Yammy, the Chimney Rock-based groundhogs, predicted six more weeks of winter.
We appreciate all you do to support teachers.
We have not heard frogs yet -- but maybe we are not outdoors enough in the evenings!
We grew up in Western Pennsylvania. Our college actually had a branch campus in Punxsutawney, PA. Still, I tend to ignore Phil if he predicts an early Spring. Always hoping for a bit more snow! (Or, in the case of Charlotte, NC -- hoping for SOME snow!!)