(C) Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural
This story was originally published by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
The Start of Something Great: Johnston Chapter Builds Power in Surprising Places - NC Elections [1]
['Down Home Nc', 'Posted On July']
Date: 2023-07-18
Johnston County is rapidly changing: new roads, new houses, new shopping centers. But in all this change, one thing remains painfully the same: Our schools and our teachers need help.
JoCo is a fast-growing county near Raleigh, and because of neglect and divestment in education here, retaining teachers is a problem. Since many of our local members are havekids in the school system, they saw how teachers are frequently asked to pay for school supplies out of their own pockets – to the tune of almost $500. That’s a lot of money, especially for someone underpaid and seeing more lucrative contracts in other places.
It didn’t seem right that teachers weren’t being supported by the local government in getting something so basic as school supplies– so our chapter set out to change that.
“We started the campaign to help our teachers,” says Christina Arena, a member who brings enthusiasm and realism to the chapter. “They’re such a large part of our community. They educate our children and we need to be able to help and support them however we can.”
During this campaign to get more money budgeted for teachers, our chapter worked with the County Commission and the Board of Education, and the county passed this year’s education budget. And it was a whopper.
“This is the biggest education budget ever,” says Christina. “We are so excited. They’ve allocated a lot of money. Now it’s a specific line item [in the budget] – teachers will absolutely get money to help with school supplies.”
County budgets demonstrate priorities; our members helped make sure that teachers weren’t cut out.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://downhomenc.org/2023/07/18/the-start-of-something-great-johnston-chapter-builds-power-in-surprising-places/
Published and (C) by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 International.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailyyonder/
