North Carolina
NC legislators continue to ignore teacher vacancy crisis • NC Newsline
In 2023 state policymakers were confronted with alarming data: teacher vacancies had hit record highs. Not only did 1 in every 18 classrooms lack a licensed teacher, but districts serving the greatest share of Black students and students from families with low incomes faced the greatest shortages. In other words, the teacher shortage had reached crisis levels, demanding a dramatic response from lawmakers.
Sadly, that response never came. Now the teacher vacancy problem has gotten worse.
At the 40th day of the 2023-24 school year, 6,006 classroom teaching positions were vacant, smashing the prior year record by 18 percent. This year, more than 1 in every 16 lacked a licensed teacher over a month into the school year.
These vacancies continue to be associated with the demographics of the district. Districts with more students from families with low incomes and districts with more Black students tend to experience higher teacher vacancy rates. The association has grown even more stark this year.
As a result, it’s disproportionately Black students and economically disadvantaged students who pay the price for lawmakers’ unwillingness to make the necessary investments to attract and retain certified teachers in every classroom.
Of course, all students suffer from teacher vacancies. And it’s not just the students assigned to an unlicensed teacher.
Teacher vacancies increase the demands on the teachers who have persisted in spite of state policymakers’ efforts to drive them from the classroom. Vacancies create larger class sizes. They require experienced teachers to assist untrained, novice teachers and to fill in when substitutes are nowhere to be found. This leaves our best teachers with less time to lesson plan, individualize instruction, assist less experienced colleagues, or to find regular opportunities to decompress from an increasingly difficult, stressful job.
As vacancies rise year after year, an increasing number of teachers are taking on more responsibilities to fill in the holes.
It should come as no surprise that North Carolina’s teacher vacancy problem has worsened. The 2023 budget failed to include any meaningful efforts to reverse the ongoing war on the teaching profession. In spite of the teacher shortage crisis, legislators cut public school budgets and provided meager pay raises of only 3.6 percent, barely keeping pace with inflation. Average teacher pay is 23 percent below the national average. Our schools remain among the worst-funded in America and our teachers continue to earn salaries that dramatically trail their peers in other industries.
Legislators know that teachers remain the most important in-school factor for boosting academic achievement. Yet they have instead chosen to prioritize a massive expansion of the state’s private school voucher program to benefit wealthy families already enrolled in private schools. While investments in teachers have been shown to boost academic performance, statewide voucher programs have produced unprecedented drops in test scores for voucher students.
The voucher expansion also sends a clear message to public school teachers: state leaders would rather subsidize their wealthy donors than provide teachers with competitive salaries, repair dilapidated school buildings, or give teachers adequate support staff such as teacher assistants, nurses, and school psychologists.
Legislators’ failure to support teachers and improve their working conditions is at the heart of the long-running Leandro court case which requires that all children have access to highly qualified teachers. The case has spurred a detailed, research-based, multi-year plan to increase investments in educators and students in order to provide the basic level of schooling promised under our state constitution. Unfortunately, legislative leaders have fought tooth and nail to get the plan thrown out by the courts, sending educators (and students) another clear message: they’re uninterested in making things better.
The legislature has further conveyed their contempt for teachers by continuing to meddle in how teachers can do their jobs. The Parents Bill of Rights creates purposefully ambiguous restrictions on how teachers approach subjects related to sexual identity and limits their ability to support trans students or others exploring their gender identity. The bill also allows bad actors to file frivolous information requests and objections to instructional materials, chilling instruction on controversial subjects while also wasting teachers’ limited time and resources.
Other bills targeting teachers’ instructional practices could be revived this year. For example, HB 187, which seeks to create a chilling effect around an honest teaching of history and current events, is awaiting action in the state senate. Additionally, a major candidate for Governor has conducted his own witch hunt of teachers – seeking and failing to find “indoctrination” – and has referred to educators as “wicked people.”
Is it any wonder that teacher vacancies continue to rise?
It doesn’t have to be this way. There are several obvious steps that the legislature could take to attract and retain excellent, well-trained professionals in every classroom:
- Large, across-the-board pay raises
- Proper staffing levels for support staff such as teacher assistants, psychologists, nurses, counselors, and social workers
- Capital improvements to ensure each school offers a healthy, inviting learning environment
- Restoration of professional development and early career mentoring funds
Not coincidentally, these are all elements of the Leandro Plan.
If legislators want to address the teacher vacancy crisis, they can implement these evidence-based policies. But if they’d rather erect barriers to make academic success more difficult for Black students and students from families with low incomes, then they can continue their current strategy of undermining and alienating educators.
Charles Gaddy was tuna fishing with his dad on Sunday, more than 40 miles northeast of Oregon Inlet, when he saw something he’d never seen before.
“I was just looking in the water, seeing if, you know, any birds or anything, and I see this big gray fish with white dots,” said Gaddy. “Just from reading books and watching movies as a kid, I was like, ‘that’s got to be a whale shark.’”
The 18-year-old said they circled it. He grabbed his GoPro camera and started recording.
“It’s just sitting there, swimming beside us. It really, truly was amazing,” said Gaddy.
Whale sharks are the world’s largest fish. They’re currently listed as endangered by the Union for the Conservation of Nature.
In the Western Atlantic, whale sharks are primarily found in the Gulf and throughout the Caribbean, according to Eric Hoffmayer, a research fishing biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service. He said they’ve seen numerous whale sharks make their way up the Gulf Stream, ending up in the New England area in late summer and early fall.
“We had an animal last year that we tagged off Tampa and within a month was off New York, and cruised right past North Carolina about this time of year,” said Hoffmayer. “It’s not unheard of, but it’s not real common either.”
Gaddy recognized how lucky he was to experience a sighting.
“To be able to see one in person, especially locally, it’s very truly amazing,” said Gaddy. “It’s no doubt a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’m no doubt very blessed.”
If you do encounter a whale shark in the wild, Hoffmayer said, you need to be careful if you’re in a boat because they spend a lot of time at the surface. If you get in the water, keep a safe distance.
“Most people I’ve talked to who have encountered whale sharks, it’s like a life-changing experience,” said Hoffmayer. “It’s really cool to see an animal that large in the wild doing its thing.”
You can report whale shark sightings to the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Fisheries Research and Development. If you’re able to capture a good picture of a whale shark, you can see if it matches one already in a database by uploading the photo and information about the sighting online.
OMAHA, Neb. — The championship series is set. And without a doubt, the two hottest teams, North Carolina and Oklahoma, are paired to play for a national title at the College World Series.
There was no backing into the finals for these squads, one that looked like a contender all season and one that did not until two weeks ago.
North Carolina (53-12-1) and Oklahoma (41-22) swept through opposite brackets at Charles Schwab Field. UNC punctuated its three-game run with a 12-7 victory Wednesday against West Virginia. OU followed by defeating Georgia, the regular-season and postseason SEC champ, 11-4.
Iconic brands in college sports, the Tar Heels and Sooners will meet Saturday at 8 p.m. ET in the opening game of a best-of-three series.
North Carolina seeks its first national championship in baseball. It lost in the finals in 2006 and 2007. Oklahoma has won two crowns, most recently in 1994, and it lost in the finals in 2022.
LET’S PLAY FOR A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/588pVssfOR
— Oklahoma Baseball (@OU_Baseball) June 18, 2026
“It really hasn’t set in yet,” said UNC second baseman Gavin Gallaher, who was 4 for 5 on Wednesday with four RBIs. “After the game, we shook hands, and I was just kind of walking around, looking up in the stands, looking at my family, just kind of speechless, to be honest.”
The Tar Heels were seeded fifth in the 64-team field announced on Memorial Day. In Omaha, they have not trailed by more than one run — and for just three innings. North Carolina’s pitching staff, on maximum rest during its stay in Omaha, is set up well for the weekend.
Junior ace starter Jason DeCaro, who worked 6 2/3 innings Friday, enters the championship series in position to start the opener. Star freshman Caden Glauber, who was needed for 2 1/3 innings Wednesday afternoon as WVU mounted a comeback, has thrown only 54 pitches in the CWS. The Tar Heels are 28-0 this year when Glauber appears in a game. He’s won 11 decisions without a loss.
Sixth-year coach Scott Forbes took over in 2021 for Mike Fox, who brought North Carolina to the CWS seven times. Bids for a first national title fell short in 2006 and 2007 against Oregon State in the championship series.
Forbes joined Fox’s staff before that 2006 season as a 31-year-old pitching coach.
“I’m trying not to get emotional,” Forbes said, “just thinking about that team and Coach Fox giving me the opportunity. I wasn’t the popular hire at the time. There were a lot bigger names. I had never been a pitching coach. But Coach Fox saw something in me and gave me that opportunity.”
Oklahoma returns to the championship series for the second time in five years. It lost to Ole Miss in 2022. The Rebels that year were the first team to win a championship with a losing record in conference play.
OU is attempting to become the second.
Coach Skip Johnson’s team finished 14-16 in the SEC and lost four consecutive league series to close the regular season. But the Sooners clawed back in Regional play, winning two elimination games at Georgia Tech, the No. 2 overall seed.
OU swept Kansas in a Super Regional and beat SEC foes Alabama and Georgia before it won the rematch Wednesday night against the Bulldogs.
The Sooners remade their pitching rotation in the postseason to ride three true freshmen: left-hander Cord Rager, a season-long starter, Xander Mercurius and Nick Wesloski. The latter duo had combined to start four games this season before they both beat the Bulldogs, who came to Omaha with the most powerful lineup in college baseball.
Wesloski fired 5 2/3 innings Wednesday and struck out four, one off his career high.
Rager and Mercurius have inspired Wesloski, he said.
“Seeing the way they dominated and they carry themselves,” he said, “those guys are just elite. Watching them go about their process has made me a better pitcher. Those guys look unstoppable, unbeatable. It’s added to my confidence level. They influence me a ton.”
OU got hot at the plate, too. In eliminating Georgia, it homered five times, including two apiece by Jason Walk and Dasan Harris. Before Wednesday, Walk had hit four bombs in 200 at-bats; Harris had four in 137 at-bats.
Twenty-five of Oklahoma’s 90 home runs this year have come in 10 postseason games.
It pays to get hot at the right time.
“You’re looking at a baseball team, a selfless baseball team that’s really fun to be around,” said Johnson, the ninth-year OU coach. “Hopefully, I can just stay out of the way the next two or three games.”
RALEIGH, NC — For years, WRAL Investigates tracked problems with North Carolina’s unemployment benefits system.
Now, two new follow-up audits show the same problems still persist inside the Division of Employment Security (DES) when it comes to paying the correct amount of unemployment and paying those first-time benefits on time.
The first audit deals with improper payments. The category includes fraud, overpayments and underpayments.
From 2021-2025, the auditor found the improper payment rate for unemployment benefits in North Carolina was 22%, most of which were overpayments. That’s more than double the national standard of 10% error rate.
According to the North Carolina Office of the State Auditor (OSA), those payment errors cost taxpayers more than $90 million over the expected 10% error rate.
In fact, the improper payment rate got worse compared to an initial audit’s findings back in 2022, when OSA found errors in 18% of payments.
The second follow-up audit out today dealt with timeliness of benefits, meaning when people finally got paid after filing and qualifying for unemployment.
In 2024- 2025, 28% of first-time unemployment checks were not cut within the 14-day federal standard. While not great, it’s an improvement compared to previous audit findings of 40% late checks in 2022 and 43% of late checks in 2024.
In fact, the auditor’s office noted on-time payments in below the national standard in just 3 of the past 20 years.
The Division of Unemployment Security agreed with the findings and recommendations to improve North Carolina’s unemployment system.
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