Kids Over Corporations

Anderson Bean: Could you start by introducing yourself and your role in the Guilford County Schools?

Carla Harris: I am a high school science educator. I have been teaching for the past 10 years, all in North Carolina. I am also a member of the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE), and I do a lot of organizing work with them.

AB: How would you describe the current state of public education in North Carolina for both teachers and students?

CH: One word that comes to mind is abysmal. The last study I saw ranked North Carolina 50th in public school funding out of all the states, so it’s pretty difficult right now. In 2008 North Carolina was 25th in teacher pay, today it is 43rd, $14,000 less than the national average. North Carolina is also currently the only state that has not passed a state budget.

You have a lot of people in this profession who really love what we do, but it’s getting really hard for people to stay. Within the past 20 years, the General Assembly has been chipping away at the public school system in many different ways. For example, they eliminated master’s pay starting in 2014, so educators with advanced degrees now earn the same as colleagues without them. For anyone entering the system after 2021, there are no longer state-provided health benefits in retirement, which discourages people from joining the profession. North Carolina has also eliminated traditional tenure and weakened due process protections for teachers. At the same time, the pay scale is structured so that salaries increase early on but then flatten out for much of a teacher’s career, with little to no meaningful raises between, roughly, years fifteen and twenty-four.

My own health insurance costs doubled this past year. Classified staff—bus drivers, custodians, and cafeteria workers—until recently weren’t even making $15 an hour. That leads to shortages, vacancies, and burnout across the board.

Conditions inside schools are also very difficult. Because of low state funding, maintenance is not always addressed in a timely way. In my school, there are several places where every time it rains, ceiling tiles have to be replaced within a couple of days. There are ongoing leaks. In a neighboring county, schools couldn’t open on time one year because of mold in multiple buildings after air conditioning was cut over the summer to save money.

Resources are scarce. Most teachers buy their own basic supplies, tissues, pencils, hand sanitizer, things that used to be provided by the school.

Health insurance has also worsened. Costs have gone up while coverage has gone down. Starting teacher salaries are so low that, when you factor in the hours worked, they fall below a living wage, which makes it even harder to bring new people into the profession.

Most schools only have a nurse one to two days a week, with nurses split across multiple buildings. That makes it difficult for them to really know students and their health needs. Mental health services are even harder to access.

These problems are tied to broader policy decisions. Legislators have chosen to maintain one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the country, with plans to reduce it to zero by 2030. At the same time, funding is being diverted away from public schools. Over the past few years, there has been a sharp increase in private school vouchers, also known as Opportunity Scholarships. This year alone, over $500 million in taxpayer dollars has gone to these vouchers, effectively siphoning money away from public schools. And the majority of recipients are already from wealthier families.

AB: What is NCAE organizing for May Day, and what are the main goals of the action?

CH: To coincide with the nationwide call to action on May Day this year, NCAE has organized a day of action under the slogan “Kids Over Corporations.” They are inviting all school employees, along with the broader community, to come to the Capitol in Raleigh. The goal is not only to stand in solidarity with one another, but also to get legislators’ attention and begin shifting policy back in our direction.

School employees are being asked to call out of work that day. The central demands are for increased funding for public education by redirecting money away from corporate tax cuts and private school vouchers.

It has been made clear that this is not a strike, but a one-day action that can serve as a step toward larger actions in the future. A longer-term goal of NCAE is to become a formalized union and win collective bargaining rights, and this action is part of building toward that.

So far, over fifteen school districts have been forced to close for the day. This happens when enough workers put in absences that there are not enough substitutes to cover positions, which forces districts to convert the day into an optional teacher workday. We expect that number to grow, and there are also educators participating from districts that have not officially closed.

These decisions are made at the county level. Some districts have made the day an optional teacher workday, while others have required employees to use annual leave. These kinds of responses reflect attempts to limit collective worker action.

AB: How does this year’s May Day action compare to the 2018 “Red for Ed” mobilizations in North Carolina? What feels continuous, what’s different, and how does this moment compare to being part of the broader national wave back then?

CH: North Carolina had similar actions in 2018 and 2019. In 2018, there was a national teacher strike wave across multiple states, including Arizona and West Virginia. That created a lot of momentum, and people here were ready to take action because they could see what was possible when educators organized collectively.

Now, we are building on the lessons learned from those experiences. In both moments, there has been a strong emphasis on grassroots organizing—attending local meetings, connecting with educators across districts, and collectively developing strategy. It’s often a year-long process to build toward actions like this.

This year, one of the key strategies has been organizing coordinated absences. In some districts, educators formally entered their absences into the system, while in others, workers signed commitment forms indicating they would do so if necessary. In my district alone, there were nearly 800 commitments, which was enough for the school board to act before everyone even formally submitted their absences. The collective action itself was enough to force a response.

While the numbers may be smaller so far than in 2018, we are seeing broader connections with other organizations this time. There has been collaboration with immigrant rights groups, voting rights groups, and other community organizations. There have been art builds to create banners and materials, as well as coordinated actions like banner drops and rallies. There is also a larger coalition coming together for events around May Day.

So while 2018 was defined by a powerful national wave of teacher strikes, this moment is characterized more by coalition-building and deeper connections across movements.

AB: GCAE has also been active in the Triad labor movement, including solidarity with UAW struggles. Can you talk about the importance of cross-union solidarity in the region? [The Piedmont Triad is a metropolitan region in the north-central part of North Carolina that make up three cities: Greensboro, Winston Salem and High Point. – EDS]

CH: GCAE, as a local chapter of the statewide union, has supported UAW organizing efforts. That connection is very real, UAW workers manufacture our school buses, and their children attend our schools. It highlights how interconnected working-class struggles really are.

We’re all working under the same system, and we recognize that the system is not working for us. Organizing around public schools is a powerful way for people to connect because over 80 percent of working-class families send their children to public schools. Most people have some connection to a public school, which creates natural links between different struggles. Schools become a central place where broader working-class solidarity can grow.

AB: How are the struggles of other school workers, like bus drivers, cafeteria staff, and support personnel, intersecting with those of teachers right now?

CH: There’s a misconception that this action is just about teachers. NCAE represents all public school workers, so when we are asking for more funding, we are asking for better pay and improved conditions across the board.

When school funding increases, salaries can go up for everyone, and conditions improve for all school employees.

We’ve seen this in recent struggles. In Guilford County, school nutrition staff organized a two-day walkout in 2023 to demand higher wages. That action led to raises, though there were still concerns about how those increases were structured.

Even before that walkout, GCAE spent over two years organizing to raise classified staff wages to $15 an hour. That campaign shows how long it can take to win even modest gains. When we push for larger changes now, we understand that this is a long-term fight.

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Featured Image credit: Anthony Crider; modified by Tempest.