March 2014

North Carolina PTA believes ensuring that North Carolina students are receiving a high quality education is impossible without simultaneously attracting some of the state’s best and brightest individuals to enter the teaching profession, stay in the classroom, and influence the learning experience in a positive way. Teacher salaries have been frozen in North Carolina since 2008 except for a 1.2 percent across-the-board increase in 2012. On March 31, NCPTA Executive Director Debra Horton and Public School Forum of NC Executive Director Keith Poston presented on behalf of a K-12 Education Consortium of parents, teachers, and school administrators to the NC

Child health is one of NCPTA’s top legislative priorities.  Yet some families continue to face challenges when access to healthy foods is limited or not fully utilized.  NCPTA will address these concerns and also present on policies and activities that promote health and access to nutritious foods during the House of Representatives Committee on Food Desert Zones meeting on March 24 at 1 p.m..  If you are interested in listening to the audio broadcast of the Committee meeting on March 24, you can go to the North Carolina General Assembly’s audio link for Room 544. NCPTA’s Legislative Priority on Health and Wellness

Below is a message from the NC Alliance for Health on Upcoming Healthy Food Access Trainings Please join the North Carolina Alliance for Health at one of two interactive trainings on obesity prevention and how obesity can be addressed in our state through increased access to healthy foods. We will discuss food insecurity in North Carolina and the many different ways people around the state are trying to increase access to healthier foods in food deserts. We’ll also discuss what to look for on this topic during the coming General Assembly short session, as well as media and decision-maker advocacy skills.

North Carolina PTA hopes all PTAs in North Carolina will consider coordinating an Elected Officials Go to School program at your school before the General Assembly convenes on May 14.  The purpose of this program is to give legislators and other policymakers an opportunity to spend a day at your school and interact with staff, teachers, parents and students.  Information on how to put together an Elected Officials Go to School event can be found here.  This link includes a sample invitation for your local legislators or other elected officials. As an incentive to get local PTAs engaged in this program,

National PTA wants PTA members across the country to know about recent voucher bills introduced in Congress. National PTA has issued the following statement: A flurry of voucher bills introduced over the past few weeks would privatize the majority of our K-12 funds. Members of Congress are signing up to cosponsor these bills and momentum on Capitol Hill is snowballing. Senator Lamar Alexander and Rep. Luke Messer introduced a bill (the Scholarships for Kids Act, S. 1968 /H.R. 4000) that would turn 63 percent of federal education funding into private school vouchers. That means all federal education funding – with the exception

On February 25, the General Assembly convened the Educator Effectiveness and Compensation Task Force.  Presentation topics included compensation comparisons with surrounding states and an educator compensation overview.  Presentations from the Task Force meeting can be found here.