Hundreds of North Carolina public school teachers called out of work on Jan. 7, participating in a protest organized by the group NC Teachers in Action, to push for more school funding and higher teacher pay and benefits. Organizers estimated that between 650 and 750 teachers participated in the statewide action.
NC Teachers in Action has outlined several demands driving the protests, including restoring longevity pay, eliminating the 15-24 year pay freeze, enabling automatic pay raises, bringing back extra pay for master’s degree holders, reinstating retiree health benefits, capping premium increases for existing teachers, and fully funding the Leandro plan.
“Teacher walkouts are work-slowdowns, which are, by definition, a strike and prohibited by North Carolina law,” noted Dr. Robert Luebke, director of the Center for Effective Education at the John Locke Foundation. “Still, I do sympathize with teachers. Having no budget places teachers and school districts in very difficult positions. The blame for that is on lawmakers. Passing a budget is one of their duties, and they haven’t approved one. If lawmakers would do their job, and teachers stick to doing theirs, we’re not having this conversation.”
Lawmakers have yet to pass a budget for the new biennium, instead operating under the previous budget and using mini-budget to cover immediate needs.
Gov. Josh Stein also weighed in on the issue on Jan. 6 following a Council of State meeting.
“The General Assembly has to step up for public education,” Stein told reporters. “We have a lot of things going really well for us in North Carolina. The best year ever in job announcements in 2025 — 35,000 new good-paying jobs. We’re the No. 1 state for business. We just learned yesterday we’re the No. 1 state for workforce development. We want to be the No. 1 state for education. We can do better, and the General Assembly needs to do better.”
In an opinion column for Carolina Journal, Jeanette Doran, the I. Beverly Lake, Jr. chair in Constitutional Studies and senior counsel at the John Locke Foundation, pointed out that state law explicitly prohibits strikes by public employees, classifying coordinated teacher “callouts” as unlawful work stoppages rather than protected free speech, despite claims that demands are directed at the General Assembly.
“Encouraging or normalizing conduct that violates existing law is neither principled advocacy nor sound public policy. It undermines legal order and places students in the middle of disputes that should be resolved through lawful channels,” Doran wrote.
The Jan. 7 walkout is not the last planned action by the group. NC Teachers in Action has scheduled two additional protests for Feb. 7 and March 7, both of which are scheduled for Saturdays to minimize disruption to school instruction.