In recent years teachers across the country have faced a wide variety of struggles that challenge their ability to teach and their professional status.

From low pay, to timeclock mandates, to restrictions on what types of activism they're allowed to do, many teachers specifically in North Carolina are struggling with issues of their own.

In recent years many school districts in North Carolina have begun requiring teachers clock in and out of work through online time clock programs.⁴

UNC Asheville Professor Chris Gilbert interviewed multiple educators on their thoughts on the mandate.⁴ The teachers told him that they feel disempowered and not trusted as a result of this change. They describe how their profession has become more corporatized through this technology, which in turn changes the way they’re expected to treat their students.

All schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenberg area have recently adopted Kronos time clock software for all employees. These schools employ a combined 19,000 teachers across more than 150 schools. If the usage of timeclock software contributes to the deprofessionalization of teachers than this change is bound to have massive effects on a very large number of teachers.

Each extrusion on the map represents a school in the Charlotte-Mecklenberg area, with the height of the extrusion corresponding to the size of the student body.

"I do feel this is yet another attempt to normalize the privatization of the public education system, which now includes TimeKeeper as well as taxpayer funded private ‘voucher schools’ and being urged to treat our students like ‘customers.’" -Joe, North Carolina Teacher

Teachers that have issues with administrative policies, such as timeclock mandates may turn to various types of activism to protest these policies, but even then they face many roadblocks.

To learn more about these issues, UNC Asheville Professor Chris Gilbert arranged several meetings with teachers to discuss some of their issues, and their troubles with fighting those issues. In those meetings the teachers discussed restrictive school PR policies that limit what they can and cannot say to media, the interniliazation about commonly pushed myths about teachers, and a lack of recognition for their work in many different areas.³

Our district’s PR person coaches you and tells you what you can and cannot say. The press wanted to interview me about the governor’s school supply drive, and yet she said, “You cannot say that you don’t have enough school supplies.”

Why does this matter?

There is a shortage of teachers and substitutes in North Carolina, with many leaving the profession, or the state to seek greener pastures for their teaching career. As of 2022, some counties in North Carolina have teacher attrition rates as high as 35%. If the numbers of teachers continue to dwindle, students will be left with less practiced and lower quality teachers. As it stands, only 30% of students in the state have a fully liscenced math teacher.

It is more important than ever to support teachers in North Carolina, from volunteering, to attending school board meetings and teacher protests, there are plenty of ways that you can support teachers. Even small things like changing your own views towards teachers, assuming the best of them, and listening to their concerns more can make a difference.