WINSTON-SALEM (August 29, 2024) – There is nothing so fundamental as for children to walk into their school safely every day.
A day after a school-resource officer took a 9mm handgun and live ammunition from a student at Carver High School last week, Forsyth County Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough Jr. repeated an earlier call for middle and high schools in Forsyth to use metal detectors daily.
The school system’s response?
They have the machines.
They don’t have the people.
“If they can help us get the staff members (to man the metal detectors), we’re here for it,” Amanda Lehmert, a spokesperson for the school district, told the Winston-Salem Journal.
Lehmert said it takes as much as 30% of a school’s staff to oversee metal-detector screening of students as they stream into school.
Another district official said law enforcement typically doesn’t help with screening, but “We’re open to that.”1
Kimbrough certainly can’t be blamed for wanting to see to students’ safety. In fact, he should be appreciated for calling attention to it.
BUT THE INCIDENT speaks to a broader – and tragic – lack of support for our public schools from the North Carolina General Assembly.
If our schools don’t have enough warm bodies to ensure students “are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, the enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor, and the pursuit of happiness,” as our state Constitution asserts,2 then state legislators aren’t doing their job.
(Note to legislators: You take an oath the day you’re sworn in to uphold those words.3)
We can start with inadequate pay for K-12 teachers, where North Carolina slid to 38th in the nation in teacher pay in 2022-23 and is projected to slide further, to 41st, for 2023-24.4
More than 10,000 teachers – 11.5% of the teacher workforce – left the state’s classrooms in 2023. That’s the highest turnover in at least two decades.5
But it doesn’t stop there.
It extends to insufficient pay for bus drivers. (Ever heard of Amazon, legislators?) And cafeteria workers. And counselors. And social workers. And HVAC technicians.
In Wake County, as a heat wave loomed this week, school officials said seven of the school system’s 15 heating, ventilation and air-conditioning staff positions are vacant – some of them for years.
That leaves eight people to tend to the chillers and AC systems in 200 Wake County schools.6
And – predictably – two Raleigh schools sent students home early yesterday due to air-conditioning problems.7
What does that suggest about learning conditions?
A SCHOOL ALSO needs to feel safe for both students and teachers.
Parents resist bans on those ever-distracting cell phones precisely because they don’t. Students need to focus on their teacher, rather than who’s coming through the door or the best place to hide.
If state legislators thought a bit more about bringing back the joy of teaching rather than punishing teachers, those all-hallowed test scores might just improve.
And if legislators want to put true conviction behind the term “pro-life,” they’ll step up and do their job on several fronts: They’ll step up and fund North Carolina schools properly. And provide enough people to monitor those metal detectors and insure our children’s safety.
Just ask the kids at Carver High.
1 https://journalnow.com/news/local/education/sheriff-wants-metal-detectors-guns-safety-schools/article_6ff234d2-5f23-11ef-b0d0-d3ac111a6693.html.
2 https://www.ncleg.gov/Laws/Constitution/Article1.
3 https://www.ncleg.gov/Laws/Constitution/Article2.
4 https://www.nea.org/sites/default/files/2024-04/2024-rankings-and-estimates-report.pdf, p. 41.
5 https://www.wral.com/story/nc-teacher-turnover-hits-highest-mark-in-decades-new-report-shows-changes-in-who-is-leading-classrooms/21361469/.
6 https://www.wral.com/story/half-of-wake-schools-hvac-jobs-are-vacant-ahead-of-upcoming-heat-wave/21597720/.
7 https://www.wral.com/story/two-raleigh-schools-dismiss-early-wednesday-due-to-air-conditioning-problems/21599216/.
Susan Usher says
It is clear that public education at every level in North Carolina is suffering due to the failure of our legislature to act. They need to provide the funding needed for these institutions to do their jobs.