(The Center Square) – Kids Over Corporations Rally, organized by the North Carolina Association of Educators, will rally teachers at the state capitol while abandoning students by the thousands in classrooms on Friday.
The three largest districts lead a growing list, as of Tuesday morning, where the requested absences on a normal school day will in turn not leave enough substitute teachers to cover classrooms. Funding for public schools, better teacher pay and an end to universal school choice are being championed by the NCAE, an organization not formally a union but every bit as much aligned with the National Education Association led by President Becky Pringle and the American Federation of Teachers led by President Randi Weingarten.
According to the state’s General Statutes in Chapter 95, strikes by public employees are illegal. This includes teachers, state employees and local government workers. Participation can lead to termination.
School boards, in many cases, are helping teachers. Parents who work could wind up straining a number of business operations large and small because daycare facilities used by parents more often than not are aligned with school schedules when it comes to closures.
Districts with full closures or workdays, according to published reports early Tuesday, included Wake County Public School System (about 161,000 students), Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (about 141,000 students) and Guilford County Schools (about 70,000 students).
Winston-Salem/Forsyth, the fourth largest at about 49,000, also gave up on classes. Other districts modifying Friday requirements include Alamance-Burlington, Asheville, Buncombe County, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City, Chatham County, Durham, Gaston County, Kannapolis City, Lee County, Pitt County and Thomasville City.
Announced intentions to overcome and remain open is a list led by New Hanover County Schools, where the Board of Education voted against rescheduling a workday for the rally. Others include Brunswick County, Davidson County, Davie County, Mount Airy City, Pender County, Stokes County, Surry County and Wilkes County.
Changes are expected daily ahead of the mass walkout.
The NCAE wants corporate tax cuts stopped, and education funding increased. President Tamike Walker calls Friday a “line in the sand.” A 25% across the board raise for educators is one of the nonprofit’s proposals.
In 2010, when Republicans took majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly for the first time in 140 years since Reconstruction, North Carolinians were on an individual income tax system with rates of 6%, 7% and 7.75%, with potential for a surtax on higher earners, and businesses had a corporate income tax rate of 6.9%.
This year the individual income tax is 3.99% and the corporate rate 2.25%. Americans from outside the state borders have responded.
State population has risen from 10.4 million at the turn of the decade to an estimated 11.2 million. Only Florida and Texas have higher growth. Charlotte (70,000) and Raleigh (32,000) have led 10 municipalities growing by 10,000 or more in the first five years of this decade.
The NCAE, according to a 2023 report from the state auditor’s office, has 25,679 members. Analysis as recent as 2025 has reported the membership – the organization chooses as it is able to keep it secret – at about 17,500, all of which are down from an estimated 50,000 in 2011.
Roughly 90,000 educators work in the state’s public schools.
The attrition rate for teachers in 2024-25 rose from 9.88% to 11.11%, according to a report provided earlier this year to the Department of Public Instruction. Prior to the COVID-19 era, the norm was 7.5% to 8.2%.
North Carolina has an estimated 1.5 million schoolchildren in its 11.2 million population. Spending on education was the largest share of the last state budget at $17.9 billion for 2024-25, and $17.3 million for the 2023-24 portion of the $60.7 billion two-year plan, the most recent passed.
Lawmakers are late on passing the two-year budget that was to begin last July 1. Educators’ pay and a previously set declining tax rate are negotiation sticking points.
The Opportunity Scholarship Program enables all families in the state to apply for taxpayer-funded scholarships. It’s a sliding scale with prioritization to lowest family income. The awards range from $3,500 to $7,700 and can be used for private schools.
Universal school choice – North Carolina became the 10th state to implement, and first without a state government Republican trifecta – was enacted Oct. 3, 2023, as part of the 2023 Appropriations Act. Also known as the state budget, it became law after a 10-day period without then-Gov. Roy Cooper signing it. The biennial spending plan was also tied to expansion of Medicaid.
The appropriation of $463 million to the Opportunity Scholarship program became law Nov. 20, 2024, when the General Assembly rejected Cooper’s gubernatorial veto. That wiped out a waiting list of about 55,000.
Charter schools are subject to the same academic and testing requirements as traditional public schools; they’re exempt from some administrative regulations in hiring, budgeting and curriculum design.
