On Monday evening I attended the Holly Springs ‘Walk In’ event.  After the original invitation messaging went a bit sideways, things turned around with the Holly Ridge teachers putting up a website. Upon seeing Holly Ridge ‘own’ their own event, I wanted to hear what they had to say.  I also wanted to show my support for teachers in general, so I went to listen and while there , took some video.

The event you will be watching ran just over 26 minutes and the session you will see took place at Holly Springs High after the group walked from the Holly Grove campus. I would estimate between 50 to 60 people showed up throughout the event. There is a lot of honesty in the commentary.  Running themes included the frustration at the amount of testing going on, the anxiety and stress said testing was putting on the kids, Common Core being implemented with little to no input from teachers or any training for it, data tracking and compensation issues. I’ll be looking more closely at the compensation piece in a separate future article.

The video I shot can be viewed below in two parts.  It is not edited or cut in any way other than being in two parts. The reason it is in two parts is due to YouTube length limits. The only additions made are titles and a few captions that include dialogue or clarification. The sound quality is not that great as I did not have a stand alone microphone, so I apologize for the viewers having to crank it up a bit.

Have a look for yourself:

Part One

Part Two

Overall, it was a useful event and it will be interesting to see the next steps the Holly Ridge group takes. Here’s to hoping they can gain traction on their own. Hopefully, I can help them with that.  Some other topics mentioned in event included:

• Emphasis on community schools
• More local control
• Teacher retention
• Class size issues
• Incentives to become teachers

More events owned at the local level, like this one, are key. The Holly Ridge event should be the template for future discussions. I sincerely hope more schools take note of it. Overall, it was a very positive and constructive use of time.

Mayor Sears (who won re-election last night, Congratulations to him!) also turned out to support the teachers:

A Few Side Notes / Personal Commentary

Teachers from Holly Ridge led most of the conversation session and I give huge credit to them overall, but it should be noted that the Wake NCAE President Larry Nilles was in attendance and led the opening remarks of this meeting. NCAE Wake Vice President Paulette Jones Leaven was also there in a greeting/session starting capacity.  Leaven also introduced Susan Evans of the Wake County School Board. Perhaps next time around it can be just Holly Ridge.

Image via: What Teacher Walk-In Was Really About – Melissa Barnes, Civitas

Personally, I wasn’t thrilled by this, given the way NCAE hijacked the original movement and NCAE’s ‘member led’ political arm Organize2020 was one of the reasons I wrote about the flyer in the first place. These three stayed out of the conversation for the most part. On purpose or not, that was a wise move. There is no denying that much of what NCAE does is politically tied. 

I’ll re-iterate a position I’ve taken before and that is to keep outside parties to a minimum. Often, the tendency of said groups to spin or step on the message of those they claim to represent becomes political whether they mean it or not.  I covered Moral Monday all Summer and the idea of that type of circus pulling my kid’s education under it’s Big Top to use as more political ammo in the campaign to ‘cripple and eviscerate‘ state leaders is not appealing. On top of that lack of appeal is the denial that this is what is already happening.

People are bombarded with political stuff all day long. The very last place they want it touching is their kids. That’s the kind of activity that will deter parents and keep them sitting on the fence instead of walking beside teachers.

Thank you to Carolina Plott Hound for linking!