“Our students need funding in our public schools. We see the lack of a state budget impacting our educators, because they are having to make real decisions about if they are going to remain in the profession,” said North Carolina Association of Educators President Tamika Walker Kelly.
The decision drew sharp dissent. Justice Anita Earls argued that the court was failing to uphold constitutional protections, writing that it appeared “unable or unwilling to meaningfully check constitutional rights violations—particularly those originating from the legislature.”
Lee and his Republican colleagues’ impasse means that our state is failing to fill the gap, causing over one billion dollars to be taken out of our health care system and putting our already underfunded education system at further risk.
Gov. Stein identified pay raises and Medicaid funding as the most urgent issues. However, state lawmakers have yet to act.
“Our kids deserve better. A surprise cut of nearly $50 million from rural schools, with virtually no notice and no allegation of misuse, is unlawful and harmful, the Department of Education approved these programs, allowed schools to build them, and now it’s trying to pull the rug out from under dozens of rural communities,” said AG Jeff Jackson.
Former teacher of the year Kimberly Jones, once a rural area public school student, says state lawmakers should offer the same opportunities to rural students that are offered to those from wealthier areas.
In the 2023-2024 school year, there was a whopping difference of $3,360 per child in spending when looking at the 10 highest-spending counties compared to the 10 lowest-spending counties, according to The Public School Forum of North Carolina’s 2026 Local School Finance Study.
The Western Carolina University students braved a 35-minute, 1.5-mile walk along a busy four-lane rural highway with no sidewalks to bring attention to the distance between students and the polls created by the Republican-controlled state board of elections.
“In the last two years alone in North Carolina, we have lost 19,262 teachers to other jobs; we have 7,000 teaching vacancies in the profession right now,” said Bryan Proffitt with NCAE, during the press conference.
As the delay continues, schools are left deciding which services, programs, and staff members they can afford to keep. Across the state, teachers and other state employees are also dealing with rising bills and ever-increasing health insurance plans, with some seeing their monthly premiums nearly triple. With no budget to deliver much-needed raises, this amounts to a pay cut for many.