Buncombe County Commissioner Amanda Edwards calls for NC teacher strike

ASHEVILLE - Citing thousands of open teacher positions and a $6 billion state budget surplus, Buncombe County Board of Commissioners member Amanda Edwards is calling for a statewide teachers walkout.

Edwards first made the comments on the Asheville City Schools District Wide Parent Group, a private Facebook page, in response to someone else's call for action. School starts Aug. 29 in Asheville and Buncombe County.

"The time is right for a statewide teacher strike,” Edwards wrote in the Facebook group Aug. 17. “With over 6,000 vacancies, there is no way anyone can justify firing teachers for walking out. With that many vacancies and a massive rainy day fund, there is a huge opportunity to get what is deserved.”

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Other strikes were effective, Edwards says

Edwards noted that in West Virginia in 1990 striking teachers "shut down all 55 counties." She had a personal connection to that strike.

“As a teenager, I stood beside my mother, a career educator, that week and I will stand beside you all should you choose to do it!" Edwards wrote. She said her mother and educators secured better pay and benefits in that walkout.

As the Carolina Journal reported, North Carolina had a $6 billion budget surplus this year when the final state budget was adopted at the end of July. Of that total, "$2 billion is expected to be recurring and the Rainy Day Fund balance is projected to be $4.75 billion at the end of the biennium. That is an increase from the $4.25 billion that was projected in the last budget. A $1 billion State Inflationary Reserve was also created in anticipation of a recession."

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Reached by phone Aug. 17, Edwards confirmed she wrote the Facebook comments and said she stands by them, stressing that public education employees "deserve better than what they're getting." However, she emphasized she's encouraging a "walkout," more so than a potentially longer-lasting strike.

"It’s unfortunate that our educators are not being heard for what they need — and for why people are leaving the state of North Carolina," Edwards said. “We know this used to be the state that teachers flocked to because of the focus, the emphasis put on public education, and not just the pay but resources in the classroom, buildings. Public education was a beacon across the state of North Carolina, and people wanted to be here. And now they’re leaving.”

As the Citizen Times reported Aug. 16, Asheville City School employees paint a troubling portrait of the district, with "escalating vacancies and staffing woes exacerbated by burnout, toxic workplace culture, and inadequate pay," according to the article.

With the new school year approaching, ACS has 50 vacancies. The district saw a 16% increase in turnover in the 2021-22 school year over the year before, with 151 resignations, including 21 retirements, according to a district spokesperson.

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According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction salary schedule, a new teacher with a bachelor's degree must make a minimum of $37,000 annually. Some individual school districts supplement that salary, though.

For example, ACS offers a 9% supplement, meaning a new teacher at ACS has a starting salary of $40,330.

Buncombe County provides educational funding for city and county school systems. But Edwards noted in her post that she has a personal connection to local public schools.

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"I am also a parent and spouse of an educator and I don’t take my comments lightly," Edwards said. "It is time for action beyond what has been occurring. Nothing seems to be getting the attention of the (North Carolina General Assembly)."

Edwards, referring to the West Virginia strike, noted, "It was illegal when my mother and her colleagues did it in WV and when teachers in Chicago did it even more recently."

While she acknowledged that a strike or walkout is technically illegal, Edwards stressed that educators in West Virginia, Chicago and other places where they walked out have not been criminally charged.

"So, I think strength in numbers is incredibly important," she said.

Edwards also is employed in public education, as the director of college advancement at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College.

Teacher association weighs in

Daniel Withrow, president of the Asheville City Association of Educators, said his organization legally cannot advocate for a strike or walkout.

"I would just remind folks that in North Carolina it is a misdemeanor for teachers to go out on strike, punishable by up to, I think, six months in jail and a $10,000 fine,” Withrow said.

“So, our real focus right now is working with local and state governments to improve conditions. And we want there to be people in office who value public education and who respect our constitutional requirement to fund adequate public education for all students.”

Related: Jones Park playground: ACS authorizes city, county negotiations; rebuild still uncertain

As president of the association, Withrow acknowledged he had to be careful in his choice of words, as "advocating a strike is a fireable offense.” Withrow teaches academically and intellectually gifted students at the city's Isaac Dickson Elementary School and is entering his 16th year in the classroom.

Withrow did say he'd like to see the state tap into the the $6 billion "rainy day" fund to boost teacher pay.

"I mean, it’s storming right now, right?” Withrow said. “If we have a rainy-day fund, and we also have this situation across the state, but especially in Asheville, where we’re just having trouble filling the basic positions to keep a school running, this is the time to spend that money.”

The Asheville City Schools district has 700-715 staff members when it is fully staffed.

“It’s the worst it’s ever been, and I go back to my first superintendency in 1978," interim Superintendent Jim Causby told the Citizen Times, referring to the staffing struggles.

Withrow noted that last year the association surveyed Asheville City Schools staff and found "more than 99% of the staff said we needed a pay raise here."

"And we got a lot of comments about people were having to work two or three jobs in order to make ends meet — that Asheville has a really high cost of living, with skyrocketing housing costs here, and what we pay folks in Asheville just doesn’t match what’s being in paid in other places like Raleigh and Charlotte, and other places whose costs of living are less than ours," Withrow said.

More: New living wage: $17.70 for Asheville, Buncombe County, Just Economics says

'Teacher pay penalty' report spurred Edwards

In her phone interview, Edwards said one item that really spurred her to make her comments about a walkout was a report published Aug. 16 by the Economic Policy Institute. Titled, "The teacher pay penalty has hit a new high," the article notes that EPI has tracked trends in teacher pay for 18 years.

"Simply put, teachers are paid less (in weekly wages and total compensation) than their non-teacher college-educated counterparts, and the situation has worsened considerably over time," the article states.

This "financial penalty," EPI notes, "discourages college students from entering the teaching profession and makes it difficult for school districts to keep current teachers in the classroom."

The report also found that inflation-adjusted average weekly wages for teachers "have been relatively flat since 1996.

"The average weekly wages of public school teachers (adjusted only for inflation) increased just $29 from 1996 to 2021, from $1,319 to $1,348 (in 2021 dollars)," the report states. "In contrast, inflation-adjusted weekly wages of other college graduates rose from $1,564 to $2,009 over the same period—a $445 increase."

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Buncombe County Commissioner calls for North Carolina teacher strike