We believe in equitable access to, experiences in, and outcomes from high-quality education for all children in North Carolina.
Early Childhood Education
We are in favor of the following steps:
Expanding access to high-quality early childhood education programs, and teacher diversity that reflects the demographics of each school.
Strengthening parental involvement and engagement by supporting parents’ full engagement in their children’s education at home, in the community, and at school.
Promoting continuous teacher training and professional development.
Emphasizing play-based learning.
Strengthening partnerships with community organizations.
Fostering diversity and healthy learning environments by training educators to be culturally responsive to the needs of all students.
Integrating developmentally appropriate technology, tools and resources to support learning and skill-building in early childhood education.
Detecting students' learning differences early, working with school personnel and parents to address students' needs, and enhancing students' strengths.
Early Childhood Education is a sensitive period that lays the foundation for children learning and life success. This is an especially critical period for brain development as well as language, socio-emotional, and physical development. It is critical for children to experience safe, healthy, enriching, and affirming environments with well-trained and supportive adults and caregivers.
2. Public Education During COVID-19
To close the learning gaps that were exacerbated over the last several years, the following steps are needed:
Investing in technology by providing students and educators with access to digital resources,
Addressing learning loss by developing targeted interventions and support programs,
Enhancing teacher support by providing teachers with the training and resources they need to effectively teach in a hybrid or remote learning environment and to address the learning needs of students who may be struggling academically or emotionally.
Prioritizing mental health and wellness by addressing students’ social and emotional needs and providing mental health services,
Encouraging parent and community engagement.
Increasing funding for education by advocating for schools and districts to have the resources they need.
Supporting student learning and academic success by fostering collaboration and sharing best-practices and lessons learned among educators, schools, districts, and educational organizations.
From 2020 - 2022, we learned that the learning achieved through meaningful, engaging instruction could not be replaced.
3. North Carolina Pre-K Discipline Policies and Practices
Research continues to show the negative impact of discipline and exclusionary policies and practices in children’s learning, starting with pre-k. More importantly, the data continues to show the disproportionate impact of discipline and exclusionary policies on Black and Native American children and children with disabilities. There is a need to examine the root causes of discipline and exclusionary policies and practices. Rather, we advocate for solutions that start with banning suspension and expulsion unless under exceptional cases, and provision of program, educator, and family support to engage in restorative practices that are not harmful for children’s well-being and educational access.
Student chronic absenteeism often follows a period of repeated suspensions. A disciplinary tool often used in early childhood education settings.
We encourage early childhood providers to implement the following methods before resorting to the removal of a child from the educational setting:
Positive behavior reinforcement: Implement policies and practices that reinforce positive behavior, such as praise and rewards for good behavior, rather than relying solely on punishment for negative behavior.
Proactive classroom management: Establish proactive classroom management practices that prevent problem behavior before it occurs, such as setting clear expectations, routines, a community of care and respect for others, and rules for behavior.
Provide social and emotional learning (SEL) instruction to help students and adults develop the skills they need to regulate their emotions, communicate effectively, and resolve conflicts peacefully.
Provide professional development to teachers and staff to help them understand the importance of positive discipline, to affirm students’ intrinsic value, worth, culture, and heritage. and to use alternative, culturally congruent strategies for helping students learn to manage their own behavior.
Implement restorative justice practices, such as peer mediation, restorative circles, and community-building activities, to help students learn from their mistakes and repair harm caused by their behaviors.
Involve families and caregivers in promoting positive behavior and addressing problematic behavior, by communicating regularly and openly with parents about their child's progress and behavior.
Collect, disaggregate, and analyze data on disciplinary practices and student outcomes.
4. North Carolina Public School Teacher Diversity
Why is teacher diversity important to our students?
Having a diverse teaching workforce that believes in students’ inherent ability to be successful allows students to see adults who look like them and share their cultural backgrounds in positions of authority and leadership.
Teachers from diverse backgrounds can bring unique perspectives and experiences that help teachers better understand and incorporate the cultural backgrounds of their students, thus accelerating the learning process.
Research has shown that teacher diversity is associated with improved academic outcomes for students from diverse backgrounds.
Teachers from diverse backgrounds can rely on their diverse experiences to accurately interpret, respond to, and be in attunement with students, thus leading to reduced discipline problems and shrinking disparities among student groups.
Finally, having diverse teachers in the workforce models and makes real the possibility for all students that they too can become professional educators.
We believe that NC must begin to fund public education and the educational pipeline to provide an excellent education, prepare its students to solve today's and tomorrow’s problems, be good stewards of North Carolina and the world’s resources, care for themselves, their families and others and be civically engaged.
