RALEIGH -- Teachers from around North Carolina came to the capital Saturday looking to pressure legislators to put more in the state budget for public schools.
Hundreds of teachers, parents and children, some waving "Stop the Pink Slips" signs, rallied near downtown and later marched, chanting, to the State Capitol. Key legislators were a few blocks away, working on a spending proposal they'll present this week.
Education funding in North Carolina is primarily a state responsibility. In Wake County, for example, state money makes up about 56 percent of the proposed $1.2 billon schools budget next year.
But state money as the foundation of school budgets is slipping. Budget cuts this year led to the loss of 3,000 teaching jobs and 3,250 teacher assistant positions.
Last week, hundreds of pink slips hit teachers' mailboxes, fueling fears of another bad year. One teacher came to the rally dressed as the Grim Reaper.
The N.C. Association of Educators, one of the rally sponsors, said 3,000 to 4,000 additional school jobs could be lost under the budget Gov. Bev Perdue released last month.
Teachers spent part of Saturday afternoon calling legislators, telling them that the layoffs shouldn't happen. The last cuts "had a deep and negative impact," said Glenda Blaisdell-Buck, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg middle school ESL teacher. "We can't take that again."
Out-of-state recruits
Possible jobs losses arecruel reversals of fortune for teachers, some recruited from outside North Carolina, who thought they were entering a profession and a state where they would have job security.
When Katie McMurray was recruited from Ohio to teach in Burke County, she never imagined that she'd be laid off. But McMurray, a fourth-grade teacher with four years of experience and a master's degree, got a pink slip this month.
If McMurray loses her job, she and her husband will have to sell the house they just bought in Morganton, she said. And she worries about what will happen at her school, where 10 of 30 employees received layoff notices.
"We need to keep our jobs," McMurray said.
Legislators say they want to spare teacher jobs.
"We're trying to keep teachers in the classroom and keep from laying off teachers," said Sen. Martin Nesbitt, the majority leader from Asheville. Senate budget writers are working on a plan they'll present to their colleagues this week. After the Senate approves a budget, it will go to the House for more work.
Damage feared
The legislature needs to avoid more teacher cuts to prevent what could be long-term damage to public education, said Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat who helps write the education budget. Major teacher layoffs could mean fewer students prepared to enter college, he said, and college students rejecting careers in education on the belief that they will not be able to find jobs.
No one wants teacher layoffs, said Sen. Charlie Albertson, a Beulaville Democrat and a budget writer. But finding enough money to save those jobs would mean taking it from somewhere else, Albertson said.
"It will certainly be felt in some other area," he said.
The state PTA is urging parents to take a bigger role in lobbying legislators on education funding.
Classes are crowded, and teachers cannot offer students individual attention, said Cindy Smith of Raleigh, whose son attends Leesville Road High School.
"It's hard for a teacher to reach a child when there are so many kids in a class," agreed Diana Bader of Cary, the parent of a 10th-grader.
With jobs on the line, teachers are probing all money sources. Durham County commissioners are under pressure to give the schools more local money. More than 230 Durham teachers were told last week that they weren't going to have jobs next year.
Teachers are waiting for a vote on a U.S. Senate bill that would provide $23 billion for teacher jobs nationwide in an effort to stave off layoffs.
"We watch the votes very carefully," said Gina Frutig, a fourth-grade teacher from Durham who got a pink slip.
Despite being told she won't have a job teaching in Durham next year, Frutig said she has hope. "There's so much attention being drawn to this whole issue across the country," she said.
