61,000 signatures heading to Raleigh for better teacher pay
SANFORD, N.C. (WTVD) -- Two small rallies in the Sandhills capped a statewide tour encouraging North Carolina lawmakers to increase teacher pay.
The Aim Higher NC group landed in Harnett and Lee Counties Wednesday, where teachers expressed their frustrations with their pay scale, and state lawmakers' plans to compensate them.
"Our pay has actually been cut over the past several years, and I'm at the point where I can't pay my bills'" said Callie Hammond, a high school English teacher at Bragg Street Academy in Lee County.
"Half the teachers in my school are leaving, which means we will probably have brand new teachers next year who have never been in a classroom. I will mentor them because I am the mentor teacher at my school. I won't get paid extra for it. I used to."
Hammond's signature is just one of more than 61,000 collected statewide by the advocacy group since January. The petition movement began after former state Governor Jim Hunt wrote an op-ed piece for the News & Observer, writing lawmakers, "we owe them a fair salary and we owe it to their students."
Aim Higher NC members said this should be done, but not at the expense of teacher assistants, and not by gambling on lottery funds to come up with money. Both are proposals that have been hit the House and Senate floor, as Governor Pat McCrory aims to implement a tiered system to raise teacher salaries, called "Career Pathways for Teachers."
"When people really strip the bark off what they want to do, it's really ugly," said Gerrick Brenner, Executive Director for the nonprofit advocacy group, Progress NC.
Brenner said tax cuts have to be a part of the public education conversation.
"Tax reform must be revenue neutral," he said. "Who benefits from the tax cuts? People at the top. Who pays for the tax cuts? It has to be public schools, because so much of our state budget is public education."
Aim Higher NC will deliver the signatures to the state legislature on Thursday morning.
