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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

A Little Help Please? Fewer Teaching Assistants in NC Classrooms

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Monday, August 25, 2014   

RALEIGH, N.C. – School is well under way and public school teachers may be feeling the burden of a new year a little more this year.

Many teachers in younger grades won't have the help of teaching assistants this year, as North Carolina lawmakers opted to shift $105 million away from a funding source for hiring teaching assistants.

Mark Jewell, vice president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, says with fewer teaching assistants now being shared among classrooms and grade levels, it will be impossible for schools to meet students' needs.

"The quality of the work that they're able to do has been diminished,” he maintains. “That's a big concern for us out there, when you're removing another highly qualified adult away from direct contact with their students out there."

Teaching assistants work with individual and small-group learners, communicate with parents and help create materials used in the classroom.

The multimillion-dollar cut from the teacher assistant budget eliminates 22 percent of the money local schools have to hire them.

It's left school systems such as Charlotte-Mecklenberg without funding for 90 positions, and Winston-Salem with a potential loss of 125 assistants.

Jewell sees this cut as part of a larger problem.

"You can't educate North Carolina children on the cheap,” he stresses. “And this is the kind of philosophy that North Carolina has transitioned to over the past two years."

Speaker Thom Tillis publicly defended the budget change, saying the money was shifted to a fund where schools can decide if they increase teacher pay or continue to pay for assistants.

According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the move makes it more difficult for schools to reallocate the money to teaching assistants.





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