North Carolina ranks 46th in the nation for teacher pay, a statistic the state Senate aims to improve in its proposed budget for the 2014-15 fiscal year.
The budget allocates funds for a hefty raise for teachers, on average 11 percent, through cuts in other areas — notably, teacher assistant positions would be halved and drivers’ education defunded.
New Hanover County Schools officials discussed the Senate budget during a June 3 school board meeting, saying it threw their budget-planning process into flux.
Superintendent Dr. Tim Markley said a 2 or 3 percent raise was budgeted for county teachers, but the board would implement the 11 percent raise if the Senate budget is approved.
“There’s a caveat. They have to give up career status for that. That’s a decision for teachers. … The 25 percent did not go away in this Senate budget. It just got modified a little bit,” Markley said, adding the county would assume in its budget that all teachers would accept the offer.
Janice Williams, fourth grade teacher at Wrightsville Beach School, is disappointed state legislators want to force teachers to choose between a raise and tenure.
“Many teachers need the money. We have homes [and] we have families. Just like anyone else, we deserve an increase in our salary. It’s sad we have to give up something to get it, particularly something that allows us to have due process,” Williams said during a June 3 phone interview.
Williams argued tenure is not an excuse for teachers to slack off, as it is commonly misunderstood, but a protection against arbitrarily or unfairly losing their job.
“We’re not sitting around saying because we have tenure, we have job protection. What we are saying is that if something were to come up and there’s a discrepancy [in accounts of the issue], the teacher has some steps she can take to keep her job,” Williams said.
She sees that protection as a basic right.
“Even someone who’s incarcerated has due process. But if we give up our tenure, then we possibly could give up our due process. That’s not fair,” Williams said.
Cissie Brooks, Wrightsville Beach School guidance counselor, noted there are plenty of checks and balances built into the system that keep teachers on track, with periodic tests and end-of-grade exams and teacher evaluations.
Those checks and balances also bring teachers out of the classroom to administer one-on-one tests. In kindergarten and first-grade classrooms, teacher assistants make that possible by managing students during the tests. Brooks said it would be a huge blow if the school lost its teacher assistants, who perform essential roles in testing and instruction.
“We do small-group activities for learning, reading groups. The teacher is not standing in front of the classroom at the blackboard giving instruction all day. Without a TA in the room to help with those groups, who’s going to do that? It’s impossible,” Brooks said during a June 3 phone interview.
Markley said he expects the House to release a more moderate budget by June 6. Reps. Ted Davis Jr., R-New Hanover and Rick Catlin, R-New Hanover said this week they do not support the Senate proposal in regards to teachers cuts and also expect the House to return a more moderate version.
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