Asheville educators rally for school funding push headed to Raleigh

A March 25 meeting inside Asheville Mall turned school funding into a lobbying plan, with teachers, parents and community members lining up behind the North Carolina Association of Educators' Kids Over Corporations campaign before a May 1 rally and lobbying day in Raleigh.

Tracey Barrett, vice president of the Asheville City Association of Educators and an Asheville High School teacher, told the crowd that North Carolina spends about $5,600 less per student than the national average. The Education Law Center's 2025 Making the Grade report backs up the broader picture: North Carolina received an F for funding level, ranked 50th and came in last for funding effort. Advocates said that gap is not abstract in Buncombe County, where state decisions shape whether schools can keep staff, keep programs open and avoid cuts that land directly in classrooms.

The local pressure campaign has already played out in county politics. The Asheville City Association of Educators, the Buncombe County Association of Educators and Families of Asheville City Schools have pushed commissioners and voters through the Two Cents for AVL effort and other budget fights. Families of Asheville City Schools says Asheville's supplemental property tax fell from 12 cents to 10.62 cents per $100 of property value in 2021, and it has been pressing county leaders to restore the 2 cents. The group also says Buncombe County ranks 79th out of 100 counties in relative funding effort in the Public School Forum of North Carolina's local finance study.

The stakes showed up in Buncombe County's fiscal 2026 budget, which set aside about $121.8 million for education, including $17.3 million for Asheville City Schools and $95.8 million for Buncombe County Schools, while keeping the county tax rate at 54.66 cents per $100 of appraised value, a 2.9-cent increase. County and school advocates have warned that if the money does not go far enough, staffing and program cuts could follow. One local report said Buncombe County Schools could face losses of roughly 100 to 150 staff members if funding falls short.

That local push now sits inside a bigger reset at the state level. On April 2, the North Carolina Supreme Court ended the Leandro school-funding litigation, leaving lawmakers in Raleigh as the central decision-makers on whether North Carolina moves closer to the public school investment advocates say Buncombe students need.