The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board sent state lawmakers a letter Thursday urging them to approve bigger teacher raises when the General Assembly reconvenes Sept. 9, saying the current average of 3% amounts to a pay cut because it’s below the state’s inflation rate.
In June, the House approved a revised 2024-25 budget with teacher raises averaging 4.4%. CMS budgeted for 4.5% raises, hoping the Senate would go along with that plan. But when the General Assembly adjourned last month without agreeing on any changes to the education budget, raises defaulted to what was approved in 2023: An average of 3.3%.
The letter to the General Assembly notes that the state has seen 3.8% inflation over the past year.
“If you’re giving our certified staff — our teachers — and our noncertified (staff) a 3% raise against a 3.8% inflation, the General Assembly is cutting teacher pay for the first time in 12 years, in real dollars,” Charles Jeter, the board’s chief of policy and intergovernmental relations, said at Thursday’s meeting of the board’s Intergovernmental Relationships Committee.
Jeter is a Republican and a former state legislator. He noted that the House and Senate deadlocked over issues that included increased teacher raises, which the CMS board supports, and expansion of the Opportunity Scholarship program, which the board opposes. Leaders of the House and Senate had both publicly supported adding money this year to clear the Opportunity Scholarship waiting list, but Jeter told the committee they couldn’t agree on how to pay for that expansion.
“Good, bad or indifferent, nothing in education became law,” Jeter said. He called the situation “a pure political stand-off.”
“The people who suffer the consequences of the inaction of the North Carolina General Assembly this summer are the 9,000 teachers in CMS and the roughly 90,000 teachers statewide,” Jeter said.
Board member Summer Nunn, who chairs the intergovernmental committee, said the failure to increase teacher raises is hurting districts that are trying to recruit teachers as the start of school approaches.
“It is a problem in every single county in this state. They cannot get enough teachers because teachers are not paid well enough,” she said.
Lisa Cline, a retired educator who’s the CMS board’s only Republican, said North Carolina’s ability to compete with adjacent states has eroded.
“North Carolina used to have the reputation of paying well. We no longer have that reputation,” she said. “It’s really sad that we have reached the point of where we are right now, and that’s only happened in the last 10 years.”
When the General Assembly adjourned, members agreed on dates when they’ll reconvene to wrap up unfinished business. The only session that specifies it’s for dealing with budget matters is in November. But Nunn and Jeter noted that the Sept. 9-11 session falls before the Nov. 5 election, when state legislators face the voters. Nunn urged people who are concerned about low teacher pay to join the board in pushing for change.
An easy fix?
CMS board members also raised concerns that the General Assembly didn’t revise its 2023 Parents Bill of Rights to make it easier for students to get vision, hearing and dental screenings. The bill includes 12 pages of requirements for schools on a wide range of issues. It includes a requirement for parental consent for all physical and mental health services offered.
That’s a reversal of the previous practice: In the past, CMS allowed parents to opt out if they did not want their children to get screenings. Last year, when students whose parents didn’t opt in were excluded, participation plunged.
“The anecdotal evidence we’re hearing is that no one’s really objecting to their children having that. It’s just that they’re missing the email, it’s in their kid’s backpack at the bottom — it’s that kind of stuff,” Jeter said.
He said that the Senate had been receptive to revising that part of the Parents Bill of Rights, but that the House was not.
Cline said school boards should band together to lobby for that change. She and other board members noted that children with undiagnosed vision and hearing problems may fall behind in classes.
“It’s not just Mecklenburg County. It is Cleveland County. It is Gaston County. It is Union County,” she said. “It would be wise for all of us to come together as a bloc and approach it that way.”
