NC students: The teacher shortage hurts us

North Carolina students say a shortage of teachers is hurting them.

Dozens of students from across the state spoke Tuesday during Every Child NC’s Education Advocacy Day at the state General Assembly. Every Child NC is a coalition of nonprofit groups that advocates for a resolution to the long-running education adequacy lawsuit, Hoke County Board of Education v. State of North Carolina, including a multi-billion plan to shore up the state’s schools.

On Tuesday, the students said they don’t learn as much when they don’t have a permanent or well-trained teacher. They want state lawmakers to do more to make sure schools are fully staffed, including raising teacher pay.

“Our education system is failing to meet its obligations,” said Giancarlo Nolasco, a rising junior in Chatham County.

The shortage doesn’t stop with teachers. Nolasco said his young brother, Giovanni, has autism and needs speech therapy but had to wait seven months to get a speech therapist at school this past year. He’s worries about a shortage of special education teachers and how that’s affecting students like Giovanni.

Arianna Gonzalez said she and her classmates are forced to take online classes when their high school can’t find a teacher — something she said isn’t as effective as learning from a teacher in-person. It took a whole semester for her school to find a foreign language teacher.

Another student said English learner accommodations fell by the wayside when her school couldn’t find a permanent math teacher. An elementary student said a permanent teacher is better at listening to students and stopping bullying.

Another high school student said having substitute teachers for Math 2 hurt her GPA, and she was worried about getting scholarships for college if she couldn’t bring it back up enough; some of her classmates failed the same class but couldn’t make up the class when it was offered after school because they had jobs or responsibilities to take care of their younger siblings.

A teacher in Anson County said he sees experienced colleagues leave to teach in South Carolina, where they can make more money and continue tor receive raises well into their careers. In North Carolina, state teacher salaries are frozen for 10 years once a teacher has 15 years of experience. At 25 years of experience, they receive a $2,000 raise but then their pay is frozen once again for the remainder of their career.

“You can’t blame [the teachers] for that,” said state Rep. Joe John, D-Wake, who spoke to the group. The General Assembly has given incremental raises most years, he said, but “incremental” isn’t enough. “What’s really needed is a real shot in the arm to the public education system.”

Teacher turnover in North Carolina hit its highest point in at least two decades last year, with 11.5% of the state’s more than 90,000 traditional public school teachers leaving the profession in the state. That’s up from 7.8% the year before.

The state now declares a shortage in almost every subject area.

State base pay for the most recent school year was $39,000 for beginning teachers and $55,100 for teachers with 25 years of experience.

Teachers are set for an average pay increase of 3% next year, largely for those with the least experience. While lawmakers are at a budget negotiation standstill, the North Carolina House of Representatives has proposed another increase 1.4% for next year, and the state Senate has proposed no additional raises. Gov. Roy Cooper proposed raises of 8.5% and a $1,500 retention bonus.

State Rep. Joyce Waddell, D-Mecklenburg, noted that programs that encourage people to become teachers, such as North Carolina Teaching Fellows, have expanded recently and do work to help recruit and retain teachers, at least for some time.

Madison Mitchell, now a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student, said people shouldn’t fault young people for not wanting to go into the profession. Mitchell’s mom, who is a teacher, covers other classes on top of teaching her own because of the shortage, exhausting her. Mitchell choked up. “Why would I want to teach?”

Some attendees noted some teachers need better training and to be more engaging and positive with students. Some said they complained about a teacher but they couldn’t tell that anything would happen. One even suggested that pay wouldn’t make a difference if the teachers weren’t any good to begin with; he suggested teachers be trained to better handle their classrooms and lower their stress.

Lawmakers said teachers need to be trained and qualified and said principals aren’t left with the best candidates during an employee shortage.

More than 6,000 teaching positions weren’t filled by a qualified person at the start of the 2023-24 school year, data shows.

“Administrators are having to make really difficult decisions,” state Rep. Julie von Haefen, D-Wake, said.