Leaders of teacher protest group now in charge of N.C. Association of Educators
The leaders of an organization that helped spearhead mass teacher protests in Raleigh are now in charge of North Carolina’s largest teachers group.
The North Carolina Association of Educators announced Friday that Tamika Walker Kelly had been elected president of the group and that Bryan Proffitt had been elected vice president. They had run as a ticket and are the co-chairs of NCAE Organize 2020 Racial & Social Justice Caucus, which helped organize protests in May 2018 and May 2019 that caused schools to shut down across the state while educators marched on state lawmakers.
The results are unofficial until certified by the NCAE board of directors.
“We have shown our power through two major mobilizations in less than a year, by taking back the Governor’s office, by breaking the supermajority in the NC General Assembly despite districts that were proven to be racially gerrymandered, and by winning many local initiatives and improvement across the state,” Walker Kelly and Proffitt said on their campaign website. “A strong NCAE can help lead both the defense and transformation of our schools and a movement that will permanently improve the lives of our students, their families, ourselves, and our families.”
Both want to organize NCAE more as a union. Under state law, teachers are not allowed to collectively bargain.
Walker Kelly replaces Mark Jewell, who did not run for another term. Proffitt replaces Kristy Moore, who unsuccessfully ran against Walker Kelly for president.
Walker Kelly is an elementary school music teacher in Cumberland County. Proffitt is former president of the Durham Association of Educators and was a history teacher at Hillside High School.
Proffitt co-founded Organize 2020, which this year surveyed school employees across the state about how many days of work they’re willing to miss to pressure the General Assembly to meet their funding demands. They were considering escalating the one-day protests that had been done the last two springs.
Jewell would later issue a statement saying that NCAE’s board decided not to authorize any statewide action at this time. He instead said they’d survey members “to gauge support for a variety of actions, including, but not limited to, a possible walk-out.”
The school closures and statewide stay-at-home order caused by the coronavirus pandemic have put protest plans for this year in limbo.
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 5:05 PM.
