Advocacy
Wake County Public Schools are the first choice for nearly 80% of Wake County families, serving more than 161,000 students across 200+ schools—making our district one of the largest in the nation. As our county continues to grow and diversify, strong public schools remain essential to our community’s success.
State-level advocacy alone is not enough. Wake County needs a trusted, non-partisan voice that brings together businesses, community members, and local leaders to act on the issues impacting our public schools.
WakeEd Partnership serves as that resource. We provide information and opportunities that help residents and organizations engage with Wake County Public Schools, strengthen community dialogue, and champion public education. Our In Context newsletter helps the community understand the policy and funding landscape affecting Wake County Public Schools.
Together, we can ensure every student and educator has the support needed to thrive.
Sign up for our newsletter to stay informed and learn how you can champion public schools in Wake County.
Take Action Now! Contact your local & state representatives.
When our community supports public schools, educators are empowered and students succeed.
WakeEdge Archive
Public Policy Agenda
Strong Schools in Every Community
- Provide adequate state and local public education funding which ensures every school has the proper staff, supplies, and support to produce high-achieving students from pre-kindergarten through high school graduation.
- Formulate equitable school performance reports which are simple but comprehensive, tools for demonstrating effectiveness and areas for growth.
- Address performance inequities among schools by giving local education authorities the flexibility to innovate at the district and school building levels.
Excellent Educators in Every School
- Strengthen the career pipeline by reducing impediments to licensure, developing educational leaders, and providing competitive compensation throughout the professional continuum.
- Invest in professional development programs which build capacity of educators to adapt to emerging best practices and dynamic teaching methods.
- Create advanced teaching roles which inspire teachers to lead within their school communities by adopting structures of advanced responsibility.
Successful Students in Every Classroom
- Ensure equal access for students to an education which includes arts, sciences, engineering, technology, mathematics, and literature, which prepares students for college, career, and civic participation.
- Promote literacy initiatives which ensure all students will read proficiently by the end of third grade and beyond.
- Diversify student evaluation to include multiple measurement methods which capture the full growth of students each school year.
2019-20 Legislative Policies
Strong Schools in Every Community
- Adequate funding for school operations
- Restore flexibility to allotment categories
- Provide funding to meet K-3 class size requirements
- Modify the state school calendar law
- Align high schools to the post-secondary calendar
- Eliminate statutory school year end date
- Adjust school grading formula
- Remove F grade
- Properly weight achievement and growth
Excellent Educators in Every School
- Funding for professional development
- Invest in programs which improve educators’ abilities to innovate instruction
- Teacher pay raise
- Reach national average
- Restore Master’s pay and annual step increases on all salary schedules
- Expand, fund, and make permanent the Advanced Teaching Roles legislation
- Principals pay raise and salary schedule enhancements
- Provide incentives for the best principals to work at low performing schools
- Appropriate pay for support staff
- Instructional assistants, bus drivers, child nutrition staff, and clerical staff
Successful Students in Every Classroom
- Promote universal literacy
- Embed early literacy practices to improve grade-level reading proficiency
- Fund local programs which show promise
- Significantly and permanently increase funding for student support services
- School-based social workers, counselors, psychologists, and nurses
- Restore funding for learning materials such as textbooks and digital resources
- Ensure local school district choice in which materials to purchase
- Revise testing requirements
- Utilize flexibility of ESSA to modify NC’s state testing requirements