Thousands of teachers, education supporters and other protesters marched through Downtown Raleigh in what was promoted as one of the biggest labor actions in the state’s history.

The North Carolina Association of Educators mobilized teachers from across the state to march on the Legislative Building to demand higher pay, more school funding and higher taxes on corporations. The “Kids Over Corporations” march will have statewide ramifications since at least 22 school districts canceled classes because so many of their employees requested the day off.

Petey Pablo performs for Raleigh teachers

2:36 p.m. Petey Pablo walked out of the Legislative Building with Durham Democratic Rep. Zack Hawkins, General Assembly police and march organizers. Hawkins said Pablo hung out with him in his legislative office ahead of the performance.

Pablo sang “Raise Up,” his most popular song, to cheers and teachers waving T-shirts above their heads like a helicopter.

“I appreciate each and every one of you for coming out today,” he told the crowd.

“we have to stand together. This right here shows people that ... if we can come together like this on more things, there could be more changes in life.”

2:08 p.m. Reagan Petty, an 8th-grade language arts teacher at Ligon Middle School in Raleigh, was impressed by Friday’s turnout. “We go to school every day and give our best to our kids and it’s nice to see so much energy and support around giving more funding to that and supporting teachers and kids,” Petty said.

“It’s our life’s work so it’s energizing to see all of this support. But we’re hoping that it actually makes a difference in the legislature’s mind to put more funding towards it.”

1:47 p.m. The marchers were serenaded by members of Chatham Singing Resistance and Durham Resistance Singers. The crowd cheered as they sang “We are fighting for our teachers in our schools.”

“Singing is a really powerful connecting force with people,” said Cynthia Crossen, song leader for the groups. “Just singing together in community is a powerful force for unity and change.”

Republicans respond to the marchers

1:36 p.m. As the march concludes, the NC GOP sent out a statement accusing the event of being led by “left-wing special interests.” “Republicans are committed to quality education for all students and empowering families with the best education options,” the statement said. “The left-wing special interests, like NCAE and the national unions, are not aligned with the vast majority of North Carolina teachers — those who want the best for their students and don’t want to be used as political props.

It concluded: “Republicans stand behind our educators and support common sense policies allowing the focus to be on the classroom and the students.”

Speeches over, the march begins

1:26 p.m. Several Democratic lawmakers watched the march, including Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, Rep. Monika Johnson-Hostler and Rep. Abe Jones, all of Wake County.

“I’ve served long enough to remember 2018 and the outrage and the protests from teachers about the fact that they weren’t being paid enough money, that we’re not being competitive and attracting and retaining teachers to North Carolina, and it feels like we’ve come full circle again today,” Chaudhuri told The N&O as marchers passed the Legislative Building.

“It’s really an indictment on our ability to pay our teachers and make public education a focus, if we continue to see teachers marches twice now in the last eight years — we clearly are not doing enough,” he said.

1:13 p.m. Nandi Dail knows teachers at her school, Governor’s Village STEM Academy, who are leaving to move back in with their parents. The cost of living in Charlotte is just too high, and teacher pay isn’t keeping up.

Dail, a third-grade math teacher, said she works as an after-school tutor during the school year to make ends meet. She doesn’t get paid in the summer, so she works two other jobs then. Often, she’s asking family members to help support her.

“Us showing our power in numbers and the power in our voices, I think it will really push the legislature to finally approve our budget for the school year, so that teachers can stay,” Dail said.

12:50 p.m. Tessa Pendley stood by a life-sized scale on East Morgan Street outside the State Capitol, inviting protesters to tip the scale toward kids instead of corporations.

“Balance the scale of justice,” she shouted while handing beads to protesters for them to place on the kids’ side of the scale.

She said it symbolizes the state’s lack of investment in children’s education.

“It is currently imbalanced in favor of corporations, and we need it to be balanced in favor of kids,” she said.

12:47 p.m. Emerson Busch did cartwheels on the Halifax Mall grass as she waited to start the march. Matthew Busch brought his 5-year-old daughter to see Friday’s civics lesson.

“I wanted her to see what a peaceful protest looks like and understand that children really are the cornerstone of this whole point,” said Busch, a career and technical education teacher at Enloe High School in Raleigh.

12:42 p.m. Multiple marchers carry “Fund Leandro” signs, a reference to the decades-old legal case in which low-income North Carolina schools argued that the state should increase their funding to meet the constitutional requirement for a sound basic education.

In 2022, the state Supreme Court ruled in the schools’ favor, allowing the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars into public education.

But last month, the newly Republican-controlled Supreme Court overturned that ruling, saying the courts did not have the authority to make such a decision.

12:35 p.m. Thousands of marchers are heading down Wilmington Street and will soon pass the State Capitol. They are carrying signs like “Fund our schools” and “Teachers would have passed a budget.”

A forceful chant of “Do your jobs!” traveled from the back of the march to the front as marchers turn onto Morgan Street.

12:19 p.m. “Consider this a days-long meeting with your coworkers from across the state,” Wake NCAE President Christina Cole told the crowd, urging protesters to continue demanding more funding beyond Friday’s march.

“When we fight we win,” the crowd chanted back.

12:17 p.m. NCAE President Tamika Walker Kelly calls on the rally attendees to begin the march by asking them the question, “Are you with the kids or are you with the corporations?”

Raleigh police have blocked traffic at Wilmington and Lane streets ahead of the march, and along blocks of Wilmington Street.

11:52 a.m. Behind the stage at Halifax Mall, state House Minority Leader Robert Reives stood next to fellow Democratic Rep. Garland Pierce. Reives said he came to the protest because teachers are among a segment of society that don’t get listened to.

North Carolina shouldn’t just increase pay for teachers, Reives said, but should compete to offer the best public education in the country.

Reives said the House passed a good, smart budget that “recognized the economic reality of where we are.” But if the Senate insists on tax cuts, he’s not optimistic there will be a budget anytime soon.

11:32 a.m. “I hear people say you took the day off,” Wake County PTA parent Emily Malpass said from the stage. “What I see is people here working overtime.”

The crowd started chanting “Do your job” when Malpass said state lawmakers need to increase funding for public schools.

Petey Pablo set to ‘raise up’ teachers at Raleigh protest

Petey Pablo, North Carolina’s biggest hypeman, is going to do what he does best: hype up the teachers. Pablo is expected to perform at the rally later Friday afternoon, around 2:15 p.m., according to a schedule of events.

Pablo is a North Carolina native best known for his 2001 hit “Raise Up.” The rapper’s song name-drops a slew of North Carolina towns and cities where prisons are located. That includes Polk, Bladen, Hoke and Johnston counties.

But it’s the chorus that typically revs up a crowd, whether it’s the Carolina Hurricanes or at a UNC football game.

“North Carolina, come on and raise up

“This one’s for you? Uh-uh

“This one’s for who? Us, us, us, yes sir”

Pablo, a Grammy nominee, was born in Greenville and was inducted into the N.C. Music Hall of Fame in 2024.

11:09 a.m. Tamika Walker Kelly, president of the NCAE, began the morning’s program by urging attendees to lobby their legislators in support of Senate Bill 943: The Kids Over Corporations Act.

The bill, filed by Democrats, would repeal the planned rollback of the state’s corporate income tax and instead set the rate at 5%.

Walker Kelly claimed the bill would raise $3 billion a year for public schools.

“Let me tell you, this campaign is not just talk,” she said “We got stuff to do. We got solutions. So when you call your legislator, you’re going to tell them to vote for Senate Bill 943.”

Republicans hold strong majorities in both chambers of the state legislature.

Teachers say they want lawmakers to hear them

10:59 a.m. Sharon Mayes teaches entrepreneurship and business at Smith High School in Guilford County, and Evonda Haith teaches social studies at Southwest Guilford High School. Mayes held a sign that says “All workers deserve a living wage,” and Haith’s sign told drivers to honk if a teacher changed their lives.

Mayes wants the legislature to put funding into public education instead of private schools.

She became a teacher in 2022 after working as office support staff. Mayes said she felt she could make more of a difference in the classroom with students and help them understand “they have a voice ... and what they say matters.”

Haith said she came to the march “to be heard and to remind our representatives that they represent us and to hear us.”

Haith wants to let lawmakers know that schools need more mental health counselors, and that some classrooms don’t have heat and air conditioning.

“We want them to know we fund public school education, and you represent us,” she said. “They sometimes seem to forget that.”

10:54 a.m. Last year, Emeline Wilson made more money at her second job as a restaurant server than she did teaching.

Wilson, a 3rd grade teacher at Franklinton Elementary, said she’s fallen into a routine — out of school by 2:45 p.m. and at her restaurant shift by 3:15 p.m. And she says she knows many other teachers who’ve picked up part-time jobs to make ends meet — a reality she said is a “sad” sign of the low wages teachers are receiving across the state.

“I love my teaching jobs, and I love my kids,” Wilson said. “But it’s hard when I’m working part-time somewhere else and making more there for less hours.”

Even teachers at well-funded schools are struggling

10:52 a.m. Even in a school district with strong local funding such as Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, Carrboro Elementary interventionist Zaile Letriz said she has to stretch herself to meet her students’ needs.

Funding cuts slashed positions for two literacy coaches and ESL teachers, Letriz said — even though more multilingual students who are new to the country come into the district every year.

Helping them get up to speed falls to Letriz, the only K-5 interventionist at the school. Letriz uses her own money to buy books and incentives for the kids to learn because otherwise, there’s little funding for those.

“I work with the kids who are the neediest in the school,” Letriz said. “So it’s hard when you cannot give them 100% because there’s so many other things that are affecting us.”

10:49 a.m. Annie Toth came to the rally wearing a banana hat and a sign saying “The Payscale Is B-A-N-A-N-A-S!” Toth said it doesn’t make sense that the state House budget plan would only pay a teacher with 25 years experience $5,000 more a year than a beginning educator.

“I love that they’re trying to get new teachers in, but they’re never going to keep anybody,” said Toth, a science teacher at Myers Park High School in Charlotte. “I bring a lot of value to the classroom by having 21 years of experience.”

Social media posts from teachers who didn’t attend

10:42 a.m. Teachers from around the state who couldn’t make it to the rally are chiming in on social media to share their thoughts.

Lorenda Bradshaw, who teaches at Dixon Road Elementary in Johnston County, posted Friday morning that she couldn’t justify leaving her students for the day.

“I’m not marching today because my students need me — but that doesn’t mean I don’t stand behind the message,” Bradshaw wrote. “Showing up for them matters — but so does speaking the truth about what’s happening in education. ... [L]oving this profession shouldn’t mean sacrificing ourselves to sustain it.”

Bradshaw’s colleague, Misty Zimmerman, shared a similar reason for not attending the protest. “I was afraid to leave my students, who have unique needs, without someone who is familiar to them,” she said.

Teacher Anastasia Hunt of Pembroke shared a photo of herself in the classroom Friday morning on Facebook. Hunt said she would be at the march today, had she not already taken too much vacation time this year.

“However, this does not mean that I’m not standing in solidarity with my fellow N.C. teachers,” she wrote.

The difference between a pizza and a teacher

10:35 a.m. Megan Hill came to the protest even though she quit her job as a Charlotte-Mecklenburg art teacher in November. Hill carried a double-sided sign that read: “What’s The Difference Between A Teacher And A Pizza” and “A Pizza Can Feed A Family Of Four.”

“More teachers have left,” Hill said. “I’ve left the system. I think that they need to realize that they are not going to keep teachers if they don’t pay them.”

10:31 a.m. Three buses full of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools educators made the trip to Raleigh Friday morning, among them Demina Gaskin, who works in instructional support at Briarwood Elementary School in Charlotte.

Gaskin said the lack of a state budget is the most challenging part of her job right now.

“The budget not being passed impacts everything,” she said. “It affects where we live, what we eat, if we can afford gas or not… If you’re working a second or third job, you can’t show up as your best for your students.”

10:29 a.m. A-Lasia Atkinson, a kindergarten teacher at Lake Forest Elementary School in Greenville said she came to Raleigh “just to rally with fellow teachers.”

“The budget hasn’t been passed,” Atkinson said. “We are severely underfunded and overworked.”

She said that by rallying together with everyone she “hopes that we can make a change.”

10:15 a.m. Anderson Clayton, chair of the N.C. Democratic Party, donned a reflective neon yellow vest as she prepared to join the marchers.

“My sister is a seventh-grade science teacher, and I’m tired of a state legislature who is consistently telling my teacher — and also teachers across the state just like her — that they’re not worth the raises that they deserve right now,” Clayton said. “We’ve spent almost over 300 days with the state legislature not passing a budget and not doing their jobs, and somehow they’ve managed to come to Raleigh and do everything else but that.”

Some are veterans of previous Raleigh marches

10:07 a.m. For Grace Cole, a school librarian at Pleasant Grove Elementary in Burlington, Friday’s protest is familiar. In 2019, she was in Raleigh marching alongside teachers from across the state to demand better funding.

Seven years later, she says, very little has changed.

“This doesn’t end with one day,” Cole said. “We all got together, we all showed support. A bunch of schools and districts closed — wonderful. That’s not going to change anything. We’ve got to keep moving.”

Cole says her district faces a shortage in roles such as speech therapist and social worker.

“We’re spread very thin,” she said. “You cover a lot of ground. Someone who’s not supposed to be doing a job is asked to do a job, and they might not be fully qualified to do that, but they want to help the kids.”

9:47 a.m. Lauren Casteen, a social studies teacher at Northern High School in Durham, is carrying the same sign she brought to the last teachers march in 2019.

It quotes one of the content standards for high school history: “Organize and take individual or collaborative action in order to effect change and inform others.”

Casteen said the march is an important example of the kinds of labor movements she teaches about in history class.

“I do think it’s important for us to be out here to demonstrate to our legislators that they work for their constituents — which is not just us, but the families and students in public schools,” she said “I have a duty to my students to advocate for them.”

9:47 a.m. Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page walked along Halifax Mall asking teachers for their support. Page defeated state Senate leader Phil Berger in the Republican Primary.

Page told educators, including NCAE president-elect Christina Cole, that teacher pay needs to be raised to the highest in the Southeast.

“We don’t need to be last in the Southeast,” Page said in an interview. “We need to be first. We’re first in flight. We need to be first in education.”

Unlike other Republican elected officials, Page did not criticize the protest.

“This is America,” Page said. “People can have rallies on all the issues. I think it’s important to let people know how important it is to look after our educators, to pay our educators.”

Friday morning T-shirts, signs and volunteers

9:44 a.m. As student teachers in Greensboro, Emma Austin and Raegan Amos have seen how their theater and arts students grow as public speakers and learn to advocate for themselves.

Every year, Austin sees more students take theater at Lincoln Academy. Yet, Austin said, arts programs lose funding every year. And with teacher salaries staying stagnant, Austin and Amos said they want to know they can sustain careers in teaching. So they made the 70-mile trip to Halifax Mall.

On the verge of graduating from UNC Greensboro, Amos said it was especially important that young people like her and Austin showed up Friday.

“I was talking with my cooperating teacher, and she said that she’s been to many of these, and she’s just tired of the fight,“ Amos said. “And she was like, ‘That’s why you guys are going — because we’re the new generation. We can take it from them.”

9:20 a.m. Lynda Lee of Greenville drove up Friday morning with other teachers and arrived as light rain began to fall and parking garages in the state government complex filled up. She brought a handmade sign that said “Educators Just Wanna Have Fund$” and “No more vouchers.”

Lee said she works at Elmhurst Elementary School in Pitt County with kindergarteners and first-graders “who need some extra help learning to read and to do math.”

“I’ve been a teacher since 1970,” Lee told The News & Observer. “I have taught in other states, and here. We need to serve our children better than we are. And even though I’m retired and working only part-time, it was just important to be here to let people know how important it is for our children to keep good teachers and to recruit good teachers.”

9:06 a.m. For $20, protest attendees can buy “Teacher Lives Matter” or “Kids Over Corporations” T-shirts from Jonas Williams of Greensboro.

“I want to support the teachers any way I can,” Williams said. “I’ve got three kids. Whatever I can do to support the teachers, I do.”

8:53 a.m. Susan Reynolds, a music teacher at Abbotts Creek Elementary in Raleigh, said she’s marching for her daughter, who is just beginning her career in teaching.

“Right now, the starting teacher salary is not enough to live off of,” she said. “So I am here mostly for her, so that she can have a better life than I had here in North Carolina.”

Reynolds, who said she has been teaching for 26 years, said that while she doesn’t think the legislature values teachers, she’s surrounded by a community that cares about her work.

“I’m not out here just because,” she said. “I’m out here for my students — because I love teaching and they deserve better schools.”

8:49 a.m. Yellow-shirted volunteers were setting up tents and port-a-potties for the crowd expected to fill Halifax Mall, just north of the N.C. Legislative Building.

A group of 10 Wake County safety assistants were among the early arrivals. The assistants ride with special-needs students who can’t use yellow school buses.

“We need a state budget,” said Demetria Harvey, a Wake safety assistant. “Without a budget, there’s a lot of turnover in safety assistants who work with vulnerable students.”

Earlier coverage:

State lawmakers won’t be meeting Friday during the protest. But the march is one of the flagship events for the nationwide May Day Strong Movement.

A coalition of labor, immigration, civil rights and education groups are holding more 3,500 May Day Strong events on Friday. The groups are calling for a day of no work, no school and no shopping.

The march has been dismissed by Republican legislative leaders who say they’re already working on raising teacher pay. A new report released this week by the National Education Association ranked North Carolina 46th in the nation in both average teacher pay and per-pupil spending.

“Overwhelmingly, most teachers from the state will be at work on Friday. And you know, the group that I understand is putting that on doesn’t spend the time they should on teacher pay raises. They’re more worried about other left wing political interests,” GOP House Speaker Destin Hall previously told The News & Observer.

‘One of the biggest labor actions’

People will begin gathering at the Halifax Mall at 10 a.m. with speeches beginning at 11 a.m. At noon, the group will march from Halifax Mall on North Wilmington Street to East Morgan Street then back toward Halifax Mall using North Salisbury Street.

This will be the first time NCAE has organized a mass march since it brought thousands of people to downtown Raleigh in May 2018 and May 2019.

“This Friday, for the third time in eight years, the North Carolina Association of Educators will lead thousands of public school educators, students, parents, our supporters and other workers in one of the biggest labor actions that our state has ever seen.

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