North Carolina’s charter school association is telling member schools to hold off on adopting a new crisis-hotline posting policy after two schools reported that a state helpline named in the budget appears not to serve callers under 18. The state agency that runs the helpline says otherwise, but with a caveat.
The North Carolina Coalition for Charter Schools sent the advisory to member schools on Aug. 26. It follows pushback from private schools on the same budget provision, as Carolina Journal reported last week.
“We heard [Aug. 26] from two schools that a helpline resource, which a new state law requires schools to post publicly, appears to not serve people under the age of 18,” said Dave Machado, the coalition’s executive director, in comments to Carolina Journal. “That would obviously pose a problem for the majority of high school students and could cause confusion.”
The coalition is “in the very early stages of gathering additional information and communicating with state officials,” Machado said.
“In the meantime, we advised member schools that there may be an issue and to wait to implement the new policy until we have a better grasp of the issue,” he added.
Under Section 7.33 of the budget, nearly every school in North Carolina — traditional public, charter, and private — must post both the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline and the NC Peer Warmline in six places. That includes on new student IDs in grades six through 12, school websites, and the home screens of school-issued devices. The requirement takes effect with the 2026-27 school year.
The warmline is the number in question. The 988 line serves callers of any age.
Asked whether the NC Peer Warmline serves minors, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) said it does.
“The warmline responds to every call it receives and is available to individuals of all ages,” said Sean Doyle, a press assistant in the agency’s communications office. “While staff are trained primarily to work with adults, they assess each caller’s needs.”
If a caller is under 18 or would be better served elsewhere, Doyle said, staff “provide a warm transfer to an appropriate resource.” For youth, he said, “this may include connecting them directly with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.”
The warmline is staffed by certified peer support specialists with personal experience of mental health or substance use challenges, according to DHHS, and it fielded more than 130,000 calls in its first two years of operation. Roughly two in five callers were referred to a mental health provider.
No one involved has claimed authorship of the requirement. DHHS “was not directly involved in drafting this provision,” Doyle said. Sen. Amy Galey, R-Alamance, a co-chair of the Senate’s education committee, said recently that she “did not directly participate in this budget item.”
The language began as House Bill 772, the North Carolina Student Lifeline Act, which passed the House 108-0 in May 2025 before stalling in the Senate and being rolled into the budget.
