Education Justice Alliance (EJA) is proud to announce our new Parent Active Group. This new parent-centered group is focused on launching issue-based campaigns to improve North Carolina’s public education system for Black & Latine students, students with disabilities and LGBTQ+ students.
Our Parent Action Group meeting was held Tuesday, November 19th. If you are interested, please reach out to Parent Organizers, Surena ([email protected]) and Mike ([email protected]).
This group comes at a time when North Carolina’s public education system is under attack. Lawmakers have done all they can to defund, segregate, and devalue our public schools. Two primary examples are House Bill 10 (HB10) and Senate Bill 382 (SB382). Both of the pieces of legislation are rooted in the idea that our public education system is unworthy of meaningful investment.
Under HB10, the state has allocated millions of additional taxpayer dollars to private school vouchers. Governor Roy Cooper vetoed HB10 but lawmakers overturned the veto.
This expansion came just after lawmakers approved a change to the school voucher qualifications, opening the applications to any income-level. This means families who already have the financial resources to send their children to private school were able to apply and receive public funding towards their child’s private school bill. Right now, schools in our state are in dire need of teachers, updates to facilities, bus drivers, nurses, and counselors. But instead of making the needed investments to better public schools, where the majority of our children are educated, NC lawmakers decided to pour money into private schools.
HB10 also provides a backdoor for funneling students into the school-to-deportation pipeline. Under HB10, sheriff’s offices are required to cooperate with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Several North Carolina sheriffs spoke out against this before HB10 was passed into law. This law gives Latine students yet another thing to worry about in their interactions with school resource officers (SRO), and studies have shown that Black and Latine students are more likely to be profiled, abused and arrested due to the bias of school resource officers. HB10 takes effect on December 1st of this year.
As for SB382, it was showcased as a relief bill for hurricane victims in Western North Carolina. However, the lawmakers who drafted the details of the bill also attached several changes that negatively impact our public schools and the power structure that was put in place to protect our students.
These changes are…
- Removes power from the Superintendent of Public Instruction to appeal a final decision by the Charter School Review Board related to grants, renewals, revocations, or amendments of charters. Only applicants or charter schools would be allowed to appeal a final decision by the board.
- Moves the Center for Safer Schools from the authority of North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI)
- Removes Superintendent of Public Instruction’s authority to appoint an Executive Director of the Center for Safer Schools, shifting that authority to the Director of the State Bureau of Investigation
- Repeals the Task Force for Safer Schools, which was established in 2013 to serve as an advisory body to the Center for Safer Schools
This measure passed and is now headed to Governor Cooper’s desk. He has the authority to veto the measure, however, lawmakers have made it clear that they will override the veto.
