Contributing to an informed citizenry, inside and outside the classroom.
Earlier this month, the NC General Assembly overrode Gov. Roy Cooper's veto to make S49 law. Among other things, this law requires the following: As a teacher tasked with implementing this law in my classroom and a mom of 2 schoolchildren, I was sincerely interested in proactively navigating how the "naming clause" would impact my... Continue Reading →
At yesterday's WCPSS school board meeting, it was shared that some middle and high school students may only receive regular school transportation on an A/B every other week basis because there are 17 bus driver vacancies. While many folks' knee-jerk reaction is to assume this is a local problem with local deficits needing a solution... Continue Reading →
Today the NC General Assembly published a proposal that would make changes to parenting and teaching in North Carolina. You can read the full text here. There's a lot of nonsense in this proposal, but here are 5 items that most jumped out to me after a first round of notes. 1. Create another curriculum... Continue Reading →
A bill making its way through the NC General Assembly seeks in part to make the first day of school more nerve-racking by requiring parent notification before a school staff member may address a student by any altered name. From SB 49 "Parents' Bill of Rights" My student rosters after Day 1 are full of... Continue Reading →
Yesterday I watched my students cross the stage to receive their diplomas and listened to speeches recognizing the unique challenges they faced during the pandemic. I couldn't help but think about a less unique but deeper and more lingering crisis faced by previous classes and set to continue unless more NC residents recognize the problem... Continue Reading →
How much have you, or a teacher in your life, sacrificed to NC classrooms in lost wages compared to the purchasing power of the salary schedule in the year they "signed up" for or was once offered in 2007-08 before the Great Recession? Derek Scott and I partnered on a project to help folks quantify... Continue Reading →
Current salary steps are on average 17% behind the purchasing power previously offered by our state. There was no teacher shortage at that time. In fact, when I moved to NC in 2007 it took me over 6 months to find a teaching job in NC despite applying across 5 districts, 2 years of teaching... Continue Reading →
https://videopress.com/v/Op9pKTSJ?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true The NC teacher pipeline has been, and continues to be, broken by elected officials who actively undermine our public schools.They want to replace our public schools with a system of privately managed charters as was done in New Orleans after Katrina. Or worse, throw in the towel on a system of publicly funded schools... Continue Reading →
Last year when the PEPSC/SREB licensure proposal was first unveiled, I wrote a solution-oriented alternative to what I believed would more effectively address the NC teacher pipeline issue. You can read the original post here. If you haven't been following this issue for the last year, I encourage you to read the original post first... Continue Reading →
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